


Book Two: After the Train

by Artistic_Arteries



Series: Gravity Train Central Station [3]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Angst, Autistic Ford Pines, Bill Cipher Being Bill Cipher, Canon Divergence - A Tale of Two Stans, Consensual Possession, Danger, Elevators, Fist Fights, Gen, Homelessness, Jewish Pines Family, M/M, Minor Injuries, Mullet Stan Pines, Mystery Trio, Possession, Pre-Portal Incident (Gravity Falls), Protective Stan Pines, References to Depression, Stan Pines Has Issues, The Portal (Gravity Falls)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:00:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 27,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24738892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artistic_Arteries/pseuds/Artistic_Arteries
Summary: After the Train, Stan Pines is home, after so many years of being homeless, he finally has his old life back,so like hell he's going to mess it up.But the project makes him feel uneasy and he's getting concerned about Stanford and he's not sure if trying to voice his concerns will mean losing everything again.Updates Mondays and Thursdays
Relationships: Bill Cipher & Ford Pines, Fiddleford H. McGucket/Ford Pines, Ford Pines & Stan Pines
Series: Gravity Train Central Station [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1667353
Comments: 139
Kudos: 72





	1. The Refreshing Taste of the Good Old Life

**Author's Note:**

> And we're back! I think I'm better at writing from Stan's POV than Ford's, but that won't last so we'll have this good chapter and then probably a pretty iffy one next chapter.

Stan Pines wasn’t sure how everything would go with Stanford now that they were on Earth again. Sure, he had invited Stan to live with him- them, actually, Ford has an assistant living with him- in Gravity Falls, Oregon, but that was while they were on the train and it could’ve been a spur of the moment type thing. He had called when he had got to Oregon, partially because he needed to get out of Rico's reach enough to feel safe getting into a phone booth for more than a minute, and partially because if he was wrong then he could at least pretend he was going somewhere until he would be crushed. 

Once he had, he was pleasantly surprised to hear Ford excitedly ask if it was Stan calling, which made him feel a hundred pounds lighter. They talked for only a few minutes before Stan was on the road again. Luckily he had brought back a few gold coins from the train, so he was able to pawn those off and get a few hundred dollars for the trip. Otherwise he would’ve had to pull a few cons in order to make it from Truth or Consequences, New Mexico to Gravity Falls, Oregon, which could’ve gone poorly for him, had he been caught. 

On the whole way through Oregon after the call, he had a weird feeling in his stomach and his chest that couldn’t be described as distinctly good or bad. Like a strangely lukewarm shower, neither refreshing or relaxing, just kind of wet. He was excited and happy and also nervous and downright panicky. He felt like he was a dead man walking to his gallows and a groom walking to the alter at the same time. He wasn’t sure how else to describe it, the weird feeling, but as uncomfortable and weird.

When he pulled up to the house, he took a deep breath and stepped out of the car, where Ford was, ready to pull him into a hug. The hug lasted a minute and it felt like the water warmed up finally, like the judge came out and set him free.

It felt like he was home again. 

So like hell he was going to mess it up.

So wherever he could, he would help. He would make sure he was never a dead weight to Ford or Fiddleford while he was here. He cleaned the dishes and helped cook the food- which Fiddleford was glad for since Ford knew nothing about cooking, cleaned up whenever he was sure it wasn’t an important experiment or something, and did any heavy lifting the two needed his help with. There actually wasn’t much heavy lifting, like Ford had implied there would be, because they had some very helpful magic- actual magic- at their disposal. 

Anything Ford and Fiddleford couldn’t lift physically, they usually had a spell or a crystal to lighten the load enough for them to pick it up single handedly. He was of help, but usually it was just as another set of hands and not because of his strength. There were plenty of times outside the lab that he was helpful because of his strength, like when he was able to wrestle the Gremloblin before it was able to take off with Fiddleford. He was able to keep it mostly pinned until Ford could use a sleeping spell on it. 

According to Stanford, they were weeks ahead of schedule since Stan’s been helping, which he would hope so after pulling the crazy hours Ford has been pushing. Ford didn’t stop pulling those same hours after telling them that they were ahead of schedule, but it was easier for Fiddleford to convince him to sleep and eat after that. 

The project Ford had mentioned was huge.

Not just in aspiration, but in sheer size.

The thing took up most of the basement which was multiple rooms and at least two stories tall in the actual portal room. He wasn’t sure what was in the space above the control room and below the house, but he’s pretty sure it’s a study or library of some kind, so at least the thing doesn’t actually take up the whole basement, but it’s still huge. 

He wasn’t really exactly sure what it was or how it worked, but it sounded a lot like something from Strange Tales and Ford was Doctor Strange himself. He really was a doctor, too, but apparently not the kind who poked and prodded at sick people, but the kind that poked and prodded at weird things and occasionally the laws of physics.

But even with Ford being Ford and Gravity Falls naturally being the weirdest place on Earth, something felt off about the project. 

It felt like a big looming red flag, as did everything that came with it. Whenever Ford started talking about it, he would occasionally talk like it wasn’t his idea entirely. At first he assumed he was also crediting Fiddleford, but after starting to understand what Fiddleford’s role is, he learned that Fiddleford had been called from his now-ex-wife's house about the project and wasn’t responsible for almost any of the ideas. He helped with the mechanical parts, but this was Ford’s idea. Or wasn’t, apparently. Ford would mention that _they_ had gone over the plans and the numbers so many times before they- including Fiddleford, now- started building. _They_ were excited about the project being nearly complete while Fiddleford seemed somewhat hesitant. 

It felt off.

It felt wrong.

But he wasn’t going to say anything about it because, again, 

Like hell he’s going to mess it up.

Which is why he had spent the last few weeks silent about it. 

But then something changed. 

Ford would work day in and day out normally, but now it was much more literal. He would work until he collapsed, spend an hour sleeping, then wake up and keep working with more energy than he had had all day. He would talk weirdly, walk weirdly, and occasionally eat and drink weirdly. Six or seven hours later he would go back to sleep and act like normal when he woke up.

He wasn’t sure when it started happening, but he had slept in late after a late night, so he was up later the next day, finding Ford about to fall asleep standing after staying up the whole night. He led him to the couch in the basement before he started cleaning up the coffee mugs and dishes from last night. He had four empty mugs on a small stack of plates he was balancing on his hand, waiter style, but when he turned around to bring them upstairs, he came face to face with his brother smiling creepily. He jumped and lost one of the mugs entirely, catching the other that fell as it’s replica shattered on the ground. 

“Sweet Moses, Ford!” He gasped, “Don’t sneak up on me like that!” He looked at Ford, still grinning but now at the shattered remains of his mug“...Ford?” he said hesitantly. 

Ford blinked for a second before looking back up at Stan. “Oh sorry about that! I thought you heard me getting up!” He says, grinning still.

He’s seen Ford smile over the past week and a half that he’s spent at the house getting to know Ford again and this isn’t like how he usually smiles. Even at his most sleep deprived and coffee fueled, his smile has never been this unhinged before- not even when he made a breakthrough after two all-nighters and sixteen cups of coffee.

“…Yeah..” Stan says slowly, looking away from the unblinking eyes, “I’m going to bring these upstairs to the sink, I’ll clean up the glass, you just go back to sleep, alright? 

“You got it, Fish.” Ford says strangely animatedly, his head bopping along with the words like he was an old Disney cartoon before stepping to the side, his hands gesturing towards the door. 

He made his way to the stairs, watching as Ford watches him leave. He deposits the china in the sink before going back downstairs. 

Did Ford just call him fish? Not the most horrible thing he’s been called, but probably the weirdest. Ford spoke gibberish when he was too sleep deprived, but he wasn’t acting like he usually would when he would get sleep deprived enough to lose some of his grasp on reality like this. Maybe he’s changed in recent years and his reactions to not sleeping was different, or maybe he’s so far past anything Stan has seen and this is just sleepless Ford 2.0.

When he gets back downstairs, he is welcomed by the sight of Ford picking up the broken glass with his hands, which are dripping with blood.

“Ford!” Stan rushes to his side, putting one hand on his twin's shoulder and the other wrenching his hand away from the glass. “Stop! You’re bleeding!” 

Ford flings his arm up, knocking Stan away from him and onto his backside. Stan looks up at Ford and Ford smiles with that unnerving smile for a second before his face turns into a strange over dramatic worried expression that looks more mocking than actually worried or sorry. 

“Are you alright, brother? You startled me!” Ford says, his eyes blinking one at a time. 

Stan kept looking between Ford’s eyes and his hands which were dripping blood all over the floor. 

Something was very, very wrong.

“Ford? Your hands?” Stan says, swallowing.

Ford looks down at his hands like he hadn’t known they were hurt, “Oh right, I cut them on accident while picking up the glass. I’ll clean the blood up when all the glass is gone.” He says, shrugging. 

“I can take care of the rest, Ford, you should clean and bandage those now.” 

“Sure, sounds great.” He says before dropping the handful of bloody glass he had in his left palm. Ford stands up, swaying, before walking out of the room with his knees a bit too high to be normal. 

“What just happened?” he asks himself, sitting on the floor of the basement, surrounded by broken glass and blood. 

-

That wasn’t the last time that he’d seen Ford with a weird gleam in his eyes and a too-wide smile on his face. A few times he would see him working on the numbers with that look on his face and nothing too weird would happen, but later that same week, he was about to make dinner for the three of them when he found Ford in the kitchen guzzling down coffee. He held the coffee pot a few inches from his face, pouring it straight into his mouth. 

“Whoa. Is that from this morning?”

Ford turns his head without tipping the pot back upright, so the coffee poured all over his chin and neck. 

The _steaming_ coffee.

“ _What the hell, Ford!?_ ” Stan yells. “You’re burning yourself! Stop!” Stan takes the scalding pot out of Ford’s hand, putting it on the counter before turning back to Ford, whose lips, chin, and neck are bright red from the coffee, but not blistering. 

“Oh it wasn’t that hot, besides, I need the caffeine if I’m going to keep working on the project!” He says, his voice sounding horrible. 

“Did you _burn_ your _throat?_ ” Stan asks, horrified.

“No!” he says hoarsely. “Well, maybe a little, but it’s not permanent.” 

He stands there in total shock, neither of them speaking, just staring at each other for a straight minute. There’s nothing much anyone can do for a burned throat, is there? He can’t think of anything, at least.

“Well. Back to work!” He says cheerfully, grabbing the pot and walking out of the kitchen. 

Stan rewinds the last few minutes back in his mind, trying to understand what any of it meant.

Was Ford going insane? 

Like, actually insane. This isn’t normal 'Ford at finals week’ crazy or even moonlanding Ford crazy, he might actually be going insane because of this project.

He was hurting himself like he couldn’t feel pain, walking like he never learned how, even blinking seemed like a conscious effort to him. 

He needs to do something, this project is taking it’s toll on him, he needs to stop before it’s too late-

But-

Stan’s breath catches in his chest.

If he mentions to Ford that he should stop working on the project, especially when they’ve been working so hard on it, he’ll think it’s just Stan trying to be lazy. He’ll think that Stan’s trying to manipulate him into letting them take a break by making it seem like he’s just concerned about Ford’s sanity and safety. He’ll get mad at Stan for wanting to delay the project even if he doesn’t think Stan is just trying to be lazy or manipulative. Ford is focused and driven so hard on this project to the point of self destruction already, so anything he sees as a hindrance would immediately become an enemy to get rid of.

What better way to get rid of a hindrance than to throw it out on the streets? That worked the last time.

Stan doesn’t think he’d be able to go through that again. It already nearly killed him too many times to count. Starvation, food poisoning, heat exhaustion, hypothermia, thugs, gangs, mafias, cartels, cops, serial killers, diseases, addictions, any of those things could’ve killed him, but straight grief and self loathing would kill him this time. He had just gotten enough back for just too long; if he lost it all again, he doesn’t think hope could keep him afloat this time. He thought back on the train that he’d be able to work on making a new life without working towards reclaiming his old one, but he’s tasted how sweet this old life is again and he just doesn’t have the stomach for the mud and sand of anymore.

He can’t let Stanford run himself into the ground, but _like hell he was going to mess it up again_

He didn’t know what to do.


	2. The Haunted Melody of a Concerned Banjoist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fiddleford is Concerned™

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised Thursday and I said "AA, you can't sleep until you get it out, babe." So it's 1:30AM Friday here but it's finished.

Stanford Pines was acting queerer than a three dollar bill. Not in the fine way, but in a suspicious way. 

Ford has acted up in the past, of course. He can’t forget how stirred up crazy he would get working on homework in college. The amount of times he had to literally hog tie him to get him to stay in bed for a few hours is much higher than the optimum and average amount for a person to say the least about how sharing a dorm went. But he’s never acted like how he’s been acting these past few weeks.

His partner was acting off and he was sure that it was because of whatever muse he had gotten the idea for the portal from. 

At first he had thought that it was because they were taking on such a huge project all on their own. Ford worked himself nearly to death on his doctorate thesis, so something this big would be important enough for his to work his hardest on. 

But then he went missing for weeks and Fiddleford was absolutely terrified he had gone and gotten himself killed hiding from him on his birthday. He knew Ford hated his birthday, for reasons he only learned after their first year oF college when they were celebratIng their graDes with some moonshine he made in the kit he has hidden in their dorm’s AC unit that he fixed. He had gotten Ford’s trust and then helpeD him looSen up enough to go on a rant about why he was here and not West Coast Tech. After that, he tried to make him see his birthday differently. Birthdays should be a celebration of one’s life, not something you hide from, even with everything that came with his birthday. 

Fiddleford had tried everything to find him. The police in this town couldn’t find their own feet, let alone a missing scientist so he began his own investigation. He got in contact with the gnomes and a few other mostly friendly sentient creatures and bribed them to help cover the entirety of Gravity Falls and further territory. He was getting to the point of using the magic Ford had been researching, opposed to it as he was.

When he showed up almost three weeks later, he told him all about the train he had reconciled with his brother on. He had talked about how he had misjudged Stan’s actions from that night and had told him things he never mentioned about his brother before. Things about his father that made him want to have more than a few words with the man. They cleaned up the house, had a few serious discussions about how they’ll tell Stan about certain things, readied a bedroom for him and moved some of the things he kept in Ford’s master bedroom to his room. 

When Stan got to Gravity Falls, he thought that when they got back on schedule with the portal that Ford wouldn’t work them all to death and back, but even after they got ahead the schedule, Ford continued the speed. He tried to talk to him about it a few times, and all it accomplished was a couple fights and ruined nights. His partner was extremely stubborn. Even as stubborn as Ford was to keep this rate, he was at least able to drag him to bed every other night so he wouldn’t go and fall asleep on his feet in the basement. 

Until recently. 

He had seen Ford go a whole week with less than two dozen hours of sleep during finals, but he would always crash eventually. But now he’s gone a whole 72 hours without even 6 hours of sleep, he reckons. While working, he would see Ford nodding off, falling asleep at his desk, and waking up not an hour later, wide awake and ready to work faster than he’s ever seen. 

He’s worried about him.

He’s thinking about how to handle this situation, lazily picking at his banjo when he hears a knock at his door. Ford and him haven’t spent a proper night together in almost a week and a half, ever since he started acting stranger than normal, so he’d be happy to see him, but it’s Stan.

“Stanley? Is there something wrong?” he asks, slightly nervous. They haven’t spoken to Stan about their relationship, so he doesn’t know what Stan thinks of him at the moment. They’ve worked together in the basement, but haven’t had many one on one conversations when Ford isn’t in the room. He’s sure Stan’s noticed that he’s not strictly friends with Ford, he doesn’t seem to be as unobservant as Ford usually is.

Stan looks down the hall worriedly, biting his inner lips and scratching the back of his head. He takes a deep breath before looking up and Fiddleford. 

“What’s happening to Stanford?” he asks quietly.

Something tightens in his chest at the same time as it relaxes. It’s a different issue than he had thought Stan would be addressing at eleven thirty at night, but it isn’t an easy issue to talk about. 

“You noticed that as well?” He asks in return. He looks down the hall and motions for Stan to come into the room fully so they can speak privately. 

“Yeah I’ve noticed, how could I not?” He whispers harshly “He’s acting like a drug addict on a bad trip! Was he like this in college?” 

“No. Well, he did stay up for days on end working on homework or studying, but he never would last this long, or act this crazy while at it. I want to speak to him but he always reassures me like nothing is wrong.”

“So you’ve already tried to talk to him about it?” Stan asks

“Not recently.” He answers, “I’ve been trying to tell him to lax his pace and rest more, but that was before he stopped sleeping entirely.” He’s never seen anyone go so many hours without any sleep, but he knows there are serious consequences of not sleeping. While in college, he did some research on the effects of sleep deprivation to win arguments with Ford, one of the ones he liked to use most was done by a Stanford University sleep specialist in 1964; he would joke that Stanford is a real smart Pine but _Stanford_ is a mighty foolish _Pines_. The boy went eleven days without sleep and was hallucinating and having memory problems by the end of it. Stanford, of course, would then reply 'then I'll only stay up for ten days'.

He never did, however, he would always only ever stay awake for thirty eight hours or so and sleep for six at his worst.

“You haven’t seen him sleep much in the last few days, have you?” He asks Stan, hoping he just missed a few hours. Stan shakes his head. Fiddleford sighs. “He’s sure to start hallucinating if he doesn’t sleep soon. We need to intervene, before he goes and runs himself into the ground.” 

Stan looks apprehensive, suddenly.

“Whats wrong?” he asks.

Stan chews on his inner lip for a second before sighing and mumbling, “I really don’t think it would be a good idea for me to do something like that.”

Fiddleford is confused for a moment before he remembers that Stan had tried to voice his concerns about West Coast Tech before the science fair incident. Ford had completely forgotten to mention how scared and hesitant Stan must’ve been at the prospect of losing Ford, but even Fiddleford had been able to catch on when Ford retold the story after reconciling with his brother. To say that Ford had problems with reading people was an understatement. He had to make important things very clear or Ford would take things the wrong way or miss them entirely. 

“..right… I don’t think I can do it alone, however bad an idea it might be for you to assist in your mind.” Stan’s shoulders bunch up and he opens his mouth like he’s about to protest but Fiddleford beats him to it, “Even if you don’t say much at all, I think you being there would show Stanford that we’re both worried and that it’s not just me fretting over him.”

That seems to occur to Stan enough to make him think on it before automatically shooting the idea down. His face goes from apprehensive to contemplative and his shoulders fall a bit. 

“You’re right.” He eventually sighs. 

“We should do it soon, before he does anything more reckless than he already has.” Fiddleford wants to be able to make some plans on how he wants to bring it up to Ford if he can, they have some time as long as this doesn’t become too dire.

“Now? I mean, he’s already a little bit farther than 'reckless'.” Stan says, scratching behind his ear nervously.

“Well, I was thinking maybe tomorrow, that way we have some kind of battle plan going in.” 

Stan nods, but his eyes are staring off into the floor.

He and Stan go through a few ideas on how to get Ford to listen to them, cutting off sometime after one in the morning with a basic idea. 

He goes to bed while Stan goes back downstairs to help Ford for a few more hours. 

The next morning, he makes breakfast while waiting for Stan to wake up and Ford to come upstairs. They were planning on bringing the whole situation up after breakfast, which is when Ford is at his most normal. He has to call Ford up but Stan ambles into the kitchen on his own, scratching the sleep from his eyes. 

They sit down over flapjacks and eat. Stan gives a look between him and Ford, who’s sitting next to Fiddleford a few times, raising his eyebrow when he meets Fiddleford’s eye. Ford is reading over the notes in his journal, most of the equations are familiar, when he looks over Ford’s shoulder, like chemical deterioration rates and such, but a few of the notes are encoded. It’s not the first time he’s seen things in Ford’s writings be encoded, but they’re usually simple atbash and caesar encryptions like the ones they would write to each other in their less than challenging but still mandatory classes. These notes aren’t like his normal encryptions, but in a code he’s never seen before and in a handwriting that isn’t like Ford’s cursive at all. 

Mighty suspicious.

“Stanford,” he says when he was finished with his flapjacks. “I want you to know that me and Stan are real worried about you.”

Stanford looks at him dismayed, not confused or surprised as he ought to be. 

He was expecting this to happen, then? He isn’t sure what to think of that, if he knew they were worried about him enough to intervene then why would he be so dismayed by them doing just that? 

Something’s strange going on here and Fiddleford needs to find out what exactly it is. 

“What you’re doing ain’t healthy. You'll run yourself into the ground at this rate!” Fiddleford asserted, placing his hand on Ford’s shoulder. Ford huffs and moves to hunch over his journal, going over his notes pointedly to ignore them. He tries to take the journal, but Ford knows that’s his next move as this isn’t the first time he’s done this and holds onto the journal, using his elbow to keep Fiddleford’s hands away. Fiddleford rolls his eyes and settles on having one hand on his shoulder and another on Ford’s arm. 

“Stanford, listen to us.” Fiddleford started, “We’re worried about how little you’ve been sleeping. I know the project is important to you but you-“ 

“It’s not just important _to me_ , it’s going to change the entire world.” Ford seethes, looking up at him. “We can’t waste more time, we’re so close!”

“We’re weeks ahead of schedule, surely we can continue to work on the portal without working ourselves to death and back!” Fiddleford stresses. “Your aspirations are going to be the death of you if you aren’t careful. Don’t forget what happened to Icarus.”

“He didn’t flap hard enough.” Ford replies, scowling. 

Fiddleford blanches. Had it come from anyone else, Fiddleford wouldn’t be able to believe anyone who said that was actually serious; coming from Stanford, however, he knew he wholeheartedly believed what he just said.

This was the man he grew to love after his wife left him. Usually his determination and high aspirations was endearing, but right now those aspects could be described as bullheadedness and foolhardy. 

“He burned up!” Fiddleford exclaims. “He flew too close to the sun and his wings melted. You’re burning both ends of the candle and yer bound to get burned, Stanford!” 

“I won’t get burned, Fiddleford” he says, standing up from the table forcefully. “I’m careful enough with the flames.” 

Fiddleford is about to say something when Stan pipes up.

“You’ve already literally burned yourself, brainiac.” Stan says.

“What?” Fiddleford asks, confused. He looks to Stan, who’s looking down into his lap. He looks back to Ford’s back, who stopped on his way out of the kitchen when Stan spoke. “Ford? What is he talking about? 

“I-“ Stan starts, swallowing thickly before continuing. “I walked into the kitchen yesterday and he was pouring scalding hot coffee straight into his mouth. Burned his face and throat with it.” 

“You _what?!_ ” Fiddleford cries out, standing from his chair fast enough that it scoots away a whole foot, barely not falling over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Swervd sqrox ekhjj bklk bqoo djig, kw iwhvf'y zhddnhh kw'qt qhwi ashwi. Nruv na fuwfblqy yph pwfvv rx mqv ros llvlwcfwatv zkaqm Vwss qv wgt phvayiqw lt nxquyqrq. Lmm erqx nhod fxdul bphq lmmb zwwm mxky bzr ltohwzjz, exl ribew fvrwzjz frmql dfl fa d wwyphu.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Comments give me strength enough to write at one in the morning in a frenzy only Ford himself can match, even if it's "just" a smiley face or 600 heart emojis.


	3. The Hurtful Words of a Naïve Genius

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stanford Pines is making good time on the portal _and_ ruining his relationships with his brother and partner!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow what's this? A chapter that's almost 4000 words? Amazing.
> 
> Okay so I didn't post a chapter Monday cause I got to the 2500 word mark and then said "but it's not done yet, we didn't even get to the intervention scene from last chapter!" So I kept writing and now it's Thursday so instead of two chapters, you get one long one, happy birthday.

“All that time on train put us back, but now that we have Stan to help, we should catch back up.” Stanford says, sipping tea as he considers his next move. Bill floats above his chair on the other side of the table, Ford had wondered why Bill would even have the chair there if he didn’t need or use it, but now he’s pretty sure it’s just out of disarming courtesy for his gravity tethered guests. 

He isn’t sure if he can beat Bill in this game, he’s lost most of his pieces already and he can’t move his king anywhere that won’t put him in check very quickly. 

“You sure are trusting of him, sixer.” Bill responds, moving one of his pawns closer to his king. He’s going to try to put him in checkmate with that pawn. 

“I know what he did, but aside from that one time, he was always a great brother.” He moves his knight to d7, killing a pawn and hopefully sacrificing it. 

“Wouldn’t want you to give up everything you’ve worked for for a sibling who’s already got you once, is all.” Bill doesn’t take his knight like he had hoped for, instead moving his pawn closer to his king. “Fool me twice' and all that.” 

“Shame on me, I know.” He castles, quickly moving his king out of the way and moving his rook into danger from one of Bill’s pawns. “I really don’t think Stan would do anything. He’s been nothing but helpful these past three days since he got here.” 

“Humans are strange. Some change completely while others don’t change at all. If your brother changed, would it be better or worse for you?” Bill takes a sip of his drink, pausing their fairly fast paced game. “If he’s the same, good brother or not, you mentioned he was lazy. Idle hands are the devil’s plaything.” 

“He’s different now. After everything that happened to him, he’s become… more anxious to prove himself. More anxious in general, actually. He’s jumpier than I remember.” He says thoughtfully. Stan hasn’t seen any combat, so it can’t be shell shock, but he scares like his bubbe Hilda did at loud noises. He can't imagine how hard Stan’s life had been since highschool for his behavior to be able to be comparable to shell shock. 

“Well, either way, Sixer, you have your work cut out for you. I don’t think either him or your other friend work quite as hard as you.” Bill says proudly, taking his rook with the rook he forgot Bill had. “Checkmate.” 

“I was closer that time. Good game.” He smiles at his muse. 

He wakes up at the small couch they have in the basement. He fell asleep at his desk, he thought, someone must have moved him. He sits up and looks around, alone when he had been with Stan earlier. The clock shows that six hours at least have passed since he fell asleep, from what he remembers the time being before he fell asleep. 

They needed to get back on schedule, the train messed up their schedule by nearly a month and even with Stan’s help it’ll take weeks of long hours. 

He works through the rest of the night, Fiddleford eventually called him up for breakfast and he ate his quickly, not wanting to waste more time than necessary. He went back downstairs to continue his work. Stan and Fiddleford came down shortly after and began work for the day. Fiddleford was dealing with the wiring in the alternator for the cooling system running through the Portal while Stan helped. Stan fixed his own car when he got the beat up thing from the used car lot, and has been keeping good enough Care on it since for it to make it so far for so long; he knows enough about engineering to be able to help Fidds as more than just an extra set of hands. 

Ford, meanwhile, is busy doing all kinds of different jobs, such as running tests on individual parts to make sure they’re functioning, manufacturing more of the coolant they’ll use, and doing calculations and research. He’s so absorbed in his work that he’s startled when someone places a plate next to him. It’s a plate of roast beef, green beans, and a baked potato, which is odd because they usually have sandwiches for lunch. 

“Your dinner was getting cold.” Fiddleford says, cocking one eyebrow up with a smile. “Figured I’d bring it down to you, ‘stead of just calling you up again.” 

“You- oh” he says, looking at the clock. He’s been working longer than he thought. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize what time it was.” He leans back, stretching his back by pressing up against the back of his chair. He feels and hears his back pop multiple times, the feeling overly familiar to him by now. It feels good pHysically, but also mentally, the sign of a productive day. 

Fiddleford winces at the sound. “Mind your posture Stanford, or you’ll be more twisted up and gnarled than a hawthorn tree by your forties.”

“Yes ma'” he replies with a cheeky smile. 

“Oh hush up, I’m just worried about your health is all.” Fiddleford scoffs with an eyeroll. 

They banter while Ford eats his food, talking about how much lifestyle choices skew research on gene affects on health or how genes skew research on how lifestyle choices affects on hEalth. His family has history of good, healthy long lives, exempting war, alcoholism, pestilence, and economic collapse.

“Well, thank you for dinner, it was great, but I must get back to work.” Ford eventually says. 

“It’s rather late, Stanford. You ought to come upstairs, get some rest.” Fiddleford nods his head towards the door.

Stanford is torn. He needs to get more work done tonight before he goes to bed in order to catch up to the schedule, but he doesn’t want to say no to Fiddleford. With Stan in the house, they haven’t spent as much time together as they used to. Everything in the situation is too fragile. Stan and his relationship, the project’s schedule, the project itself, even Fiddleford and his relationship, being as new as it is, is too fragile for coming out to Stan to go wrong. If Stan doesn’t take it well, it could cause so much damage, not just physically, but emotionally it would be strenuous which could cause problems. 

That’s one of the reasons he needs to finish the portal as fast as possible. If he can stabilize it, he thinks telling Stan wouldn’t have so many possible consequences. If Stan simply leaves before the portal is done, Ford will have to work even harder than he is now to even begin to hope to catch up with the sChedule. Fiddleford is getting on his case about working too hard now, what will he think when he’s pulling a hundred and thirty hour work weeks? He’s pretty sure it’s possible to push himself that far. 

“Give me a few more minutes to finish this up and I’ll join you.” Ford decides, smiling at Fiddleford. 

Fiddleford sighs a little, hardly noticeable to Ford and walks out of the room. 

A few minutes turns into a few hours before Ford even realizes it, once he does, he leans back and groans into his hands. By now Fiddleford would’ve gone to bed without him. He’ll make it up to him tomorrow. For now, he’ll work a few more minutes and go to sleep. 

A few minutes and a few minutes more until Stan comes downstairs. “Please don’t tell me you’ve been here all night.” He says

Ford looks over to him, surprised. “What are you doing down here so late?” The room shifts when he turns his head to see Stan and he wonders when that started happening. 

“It’s morning, Ford.” 

“I- oh” Ford sees the clock, which reads '8:30’. “I didn’t realize.” 

Fiddleford comes down behind Stan, takes a look at him and makes a face. “Good lord, Stanford. Come on, get.” He says, shooing Ford up from his desk. The floor sways only a little, but First allows Fiddleford to usher him to bed. 

Events like that happen again and again for weeks before he voices his annoyance to Bill about it. 

“Even with Stan’s help, we’re just barely ahead of schedule, I need to be able to work for longer, but every time one of them see me after an allnighter they drag me to bed! They treat me like- like a child who can’t withstand a few dozen hours of work!” He says, pacing in the mindscape. 

“The human body has such annoying restrictions. Sleeping, eating, drinking, they take up so much time. It’s too bad you aren’t more like me, Sixer, being a being of pure energy leaves me with all the time in the world to do all the worK I need.” Bill says, brushing away a floating book that was floating near him. “Having a body like yours slows you down. How about this, I’ll take over your body while you sleep and keep working for you, that way you won’t lose any time!” he says, extending out his hand to Ford.

Ford’s heart swelled in gratitude and relief. Few times has he felt so grateful and blessed before. How absolutely glad he was just to know someone. He happily accepts, shaking Bills hand. Their hands catch with blue flame, the same fire as when they became partners; the fire of a deal, Bill had once told him. 

It feels strange, like a heavier gas than oxygen enveloping his hand while sending a tingling sensation through his arm. He knows he isn’t physically doing or touching anything, but he feels a shutter go through his entire body. 

The mindscape is consumed by a heavy darkness, his consciousness falling dormant under the inky black. 

He opens his eyes, sitting up in his desk chair. On the desk, there’s a pile of completed equations. He looks over to the lab equipment, where there are two newly made barrels of their synthesized alien fuel. Hours and hours of work finished and he feels wake and ready to start the day like he had eight hours of sleep. His eye hurts, but he doesn’t think it’s too bad.

This was a great idea.

The longest breaks Ford takes over the next week is less than two hours, taking his time eating and showering now that sleeping is productive. He gets finished with his work for the project so quickly that he helps with Stan's and Fiddleford's parts more, the two watching him in confusion and what he thinks is awe as he seemingly pulls three allnighters in a row without breaking a sweat. A few times they ask if he’s feeling alright, to which he has to prove he feels fine and can answer any question they throw at him to test his awareness. 

At one point, he wakes up to find his hands bandaged.

He's confused about them, so he goes and meditates, calling Bill from the ether. 

“Hey there IQ, how’s it going?” Bill greets when he enters the mindscape. 

“I woke up to my hands bandaged this morning, what happened to them?” he asks, tilting his head to make it clear that he’s simply curious and not accusing. 

“Oh yeah. I was cleaning up a broken mug and didn’t realize how little it takes for human skin to get damaged.” Bill explains, twirling his cane. “I cleaned you up and bandaged the cuts. It wasn’t too bad, should be fine after the salve I put on it had some time to work.” 

“Oh, thank you.” Ford smiles. “How did the mug break?” 

“Stan dropped it, he was trying to gather up all the plates and stuff all at once and lost hold of one.”

Taking shortcuts as always, it seems. 

“It wasn’t my Star Trek mug, was it?” he asks hopefully.

“No, it was one of those plain white ones.”

He breathes a sigh of relief. He has a few sets of mugs constantly in use for all the coffee and tea him and Fiddleford drink, but he has a few mugs that Ford found at a convention he attended on a trip back to the east coast, one of them being a Star Trek mug. He doesn’t have as much free time now and the closest annual convention he knows of is in California, he would hate to lose any of his favorite mugs, especially when they’re less replaceable than the other ones.

He’ll have to talk to Stan about it. 

He bids his partner goodbye and wakes back up. Taking the bandages off, he notices only small scabs remain on his hands. They’re only a little sore, so he continues to work until breakfast is ready. 

He doesn’t get a chance to talk to Stan about it until eventually he decides to not mention it at all. He should keep his special mugs in his room or his study since the portal may create gravitational fluxes anyway. 

A few days later, he wakes up to find his face and throat numb. Before he goes to meditate to ask Bill about it, he notices a note written on his arm. 

“Drank coffee too fast, wasn’t expecting it to be so hot. Didn’t hurt anything too badly, I checked”

Bill knew so much about everything; the universe, science, history, even things about himself, but it seems that given a human form, he’s rather clueless. 

Although, Ford considers, if it were him in whatever constitutes as a body for a being of pure energy, he probably wouldn’t be much better and with much higher cosmic consequences. As is, a few minor burns doesn’t matter too much. 

In the large scheme of things it’s nothing in comparison to the good their deal has done. Bill and Ford have gotten so much work done, they’re nearly finished with the portal. They’re to run initial tests later this week, weeks ahead of schedule! If all goes well, they could be finished before the month is done!

This will put him in the history books with the greatest names in science alongside Newton, Tesla, and Einstein. This portal could open up an entire field of science, literally whole new worlds of exploration and inspection.

That, coupled with his findings on the weirdness of Gravity Falls may make him the greatest scientist of his generation if not every generation. 

But even with how close they are, Fiddleford double, triple, and occasionally quadruple checks Ford’s calculations, he tries harder and harder each night to drag him to bed, and distracts Ford with meaningless breaks. When he mentioned it to Bill, Bill wonders if Fiddleford is really interested in finishing the portal at all. Ford assures Bill that Fiddleford had been excited by the idea, but secretly he wonders about Fidd's resolve. 

Ford works harder as a response, he cuts down his longer breaks and really buckles down his resolve to not allow himself to be distracted for too long. He brings his journal to look over Bill's work every meal he doesn’t take in the basement and doesn’t leave the house for just about anything. Bill writes notes to Ford on his skin each night so Ford doesn’t have to meditate to hear from him, they’re usually updates on what happened while he slept, little things like to do lists for Ford or what he got done. Sometimes they’re comments about something he noticed about Stan or Fiddleford, how they’ve been asking Bill-in-Ford's-Body to take more breaks and to sleep for a while. 

Stan only tells Bill to take a break, probably because it’s usually two or three in the morning when he asks and Ford is usually 'asleep', but Ford still finds it annoying. They’re so close, couldn’t they see how important this was to him? To the world?

One morning as they’re eating breakfast, Ford’s looking over Bill’s work so he knows what needs to get done today when he notices that his housemates are silent. He usually tunes Stan and Fiddleford’s small talk out anyway, but today they aren’t talking at all. 

“Stanford,” Fiddleford starts. Ford hums in response, hoping it’s nothing. 

“I want you to know that me and Stan are real worried about you” 

Inwardly, Ford cringes. Why? Why now? When they were so close he could practically taste it? He knew something like this was going to happen. Bill was right to think their resolve was weak. He looks up to Fiddleford with disappointment deep inside him. He had hoped Fiddleford was excited about the Portal, the engineering feat he accomplished would have the world in awe of this country hick's prowess. 

But now-

“What you’re doing ain’t healthy. You'll run yourself into the ground at this rate!” Fiddleford nagged. He put his hand on Ford’s shoulder, but Ford tries to get away from the touch by huddling over his journal. He doesn’t want to be here. Fiddleford tries to take his journal in response to this, but given he’s tried that in the past arguments, Ford sees it coming and clamps down, using his elbows to defend his journal. He hears Fiddleford huff and, giving up, puts his hands on Ford’s shoulder and arm. 

“Stanford, listen to us.” Fiddleford started, “We’re worried about how little you’ve been sleeping. I know the project is important to you but you-“ 

Stanford bristles.

“It’s not just important _to me_ ,” he stresses, “it’s going to change the entire world.” Ford seethes, looking up at him. He can’t believe how naïve and short-sighted Fiddleford is acting. Can’t he see that the project is going to be literally world-changing? “We can’t waste more time, we’re so close!”

“We’re weeks ahead of schedule,” Fiddleford argues and oh, this again. “surely we can continue to work on the portal without working ourselves to death and back!” Ford rolls his eyes. Fiddleford is over exaggerating, but he also doesn’t know about Bill, so he doesn’t know how wrong he is. “Your aspirations are going to be the death of you if you aren’t careful. Don’t forget what happened to Icarus.”

“He didn’t flap hard enough.” Ford snarks, scowling.

Honestly, comparing him to Icarus is foolish. If anything, he’s Daedalus, great inventor and scholar and father of Icarus. 

Bill has helped him by eliminating the danger of flying too high and he knows the dangers of flying too low, such as what Fiddleford and Stan are seemingly both doing.

If they stop working on the portal, they face flying too low and drowning in the ocean, weighed down by the frivolities of current human existence and escapism that want to draw them in. It’s not that he doesn’t want to go swimming- to go on adventures with Stan and show him the wonders of Gravity Falls, or to spend time with the only person he’s ever felt such love with, but he knows that one distraction leads to another. They can’t stop now, not when they’re so close. 

“He burned up!” Fiddleford pitches, his voice breaking in his anger and disbelief. “He flew too close to the sun and his wings melted. You’re burning both ends of the candle and yer bound to get burned, Stanford!” 

He thinks about telling them about why he wouldn’t get burned, how Bill is protecting him and helping him through the flames, but they wouldn’t understand. 

“I won’t get burned, Fiddleford” he says, standing up from the table forcefully. “I’m careful enough with the flames.” 

He doesn’t want to have to deal with this, so he turns to leave, getting halfway to the door when Stan finally pipes up.

“You’ve already literally burned yourself, brainiac.” Stan says. 

Oh so Stan saw that? Bill hadn’t mentioned that Stan was there when he underestimated how hot his coffee was and Stan hadn’t mentioned anything either, not that he’s spoken to Stan much outside of small talk and work-related things these past few days. 

“What?” Fiddleford asks and Ford internally panics. Fiddleford will fret, he’ll use whatever Stan saw as evidence that Ford is working too hard and needs someone to take care of himself like a toddler who doesn’t know when they need a nap. He tries to think of a way out of what’s about to happen.

“Ford, what is he talking about?” Fidds asks and Ford doesn’t know how to answer that. He knows how hot coffee is, he rarely spills on himself unless he’s severely sleep deprived and literally falling asleep as he drinks more coffee. 

“I- I walked into the kitchen yesterday and he was pouring scalding hot coffee straight into his mouth. Burned his face and throat with it.“ Stan, ever unhelpful, decides to explain while Ford’s tongue remains tied. 

Wait- what? 

“You _what?!_ ” Fiddleford cries out. Ford hears Fiddleford stand up suddenly, his chair scraping across the floor with the momentum. 

Bill simply underestimated how hot the coffee was, but Stan is twisting the story to make it seem like he was pouring an entire pot into his mouth. He really wanted a break so bad he was willing to rile Fiddleford up with a fabricated story to pit him against Ford? 

“It wasn’t that bad! I’m fine! I needed to keep working, like I always do!” Ford yells, turning around to face them with eyes blazing, “I needed to get a few more hours of work because the portal needs to be finished!” Ford exclaims.

“That’s insane, Ford!” Stanley yells back. “You said we were ahead of the schedule, we don’t need to work so hard on this!”

Stan was working hard on it before, he’s been working so hard just to help wherever he can: cooking, cleaning, basic mechanics, heavy lifting, anything. Why this, now? It wasn’t laziness, now that he thinks of all that Stan’s been helping with. No, it was something else. He was trying so hard to be helpful, to pull his own weight and more, so why-

Oh.

“Oh, is this what this is about?” Ford asks, realizing. “You’re afraid” he starts slowly, working out the truth as he speaks, “that once the project is finished I won’t need you anymore?” He looks at Stan and begins to feel furious suddenly. How dare he do this again?! “Is that why you’re trying to sabotage me again!?” Ford snarls at Stan.

Stan looks shocked and recoils from him but Ford steps forward, “I’m giving you the chance to really make it up to me and you’re sabotaging the project?” he yells, moving towards Stan.

“That’s enough!” Fiddleford moves in-between him and Stan. “Stanford Pines, that isn’t what this is about and I suggest you go on and back off before you say something you’ll regret! What was Stan talking about, you burning yourself?”

That was a much simpler topic than the one he was on before.

“I didn’t realize how hot it was so when I drank some, I jolted and spilled it all over myself.” He explains sullenly. “Nothing even blistered or swelled so it wasn’t even a first degree burn.” 

Fiddleford narrows his eyes at him.

“Really? Ford, that doesn’t sound like you.” Fiddleford questions. He turns his head to the side slightly before addressing Stan, “That what you see, Stan?” 

Behind Fiddleford, Stan hesitates to answer, pursing his lips together. 

Ford doesn’t want to be here like this anymore. He doesn’t want to talk about this when everything is just too fragile. Not when they’re so close to the finish line. Not when tensions are so high. The portal needs to be finished, then everything else can happen.

Even if he has to finish it himself. 

Ford hears Fiddleford calling after him as he strides out the room, but he isn’t stopped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ohog iqbv foepwkyp hrf nqu'x ayw keto vompu vdmeo,  
> iv akdj fswb kuwvspjxu knvri gkal uyol fcn ckzkmg,  
> alkc fphp'd vbvp ywa xjo yhc K djvyirv px yywsh cd csp.  
> ayw ipcwg ti dev zsoo qm xjsu pw udksp aywy jcena.
> 
> M vbklh vy ovzg iqb fwd avy leua aqenkr'v lwkkg,  
> S vymgn vv lqvf fswb jhrf lwa cqe'f yevrgy lqvf fswb iyyfqg!  
> P xjspr cqe musy gjhx K'w ilxvspn ev  
> iqb wcsf nsqndfi cxf P nwcv ksp'd yhrv iqb vgqtlxvspn xjkv!


	4. The Sweet Taste of Blood and Coffee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did a lot of stuff today which included supervising a friend who's a young driver and writing the entirety of this chapter, now I need to go help summon a demon lord and kill all the heroes trying to stop me.

Stanford Pines was one of the smartest idiots he’s ever seen. The only person more gullible but as smart as Sixer was Tesla. He had wanted so desperately to use Tesla to make his portal but Tesla couldn’t get the funding from Morgan after Westinghouse cheated him out of his royalties. He didn’t need to do anything to his mind in the end either! The freak started falling to pieces after Bill cut ties with him all on his own; formed an obsession with the number three and spent the rest of his life trying to talk to birds.

After Tesla came Ford, a six fingered human who was studying Gravity Falls. Right away, Bill knew that Sixer was The Hand, sign of the odd from the zodiac wheel, how could he not? He had the exact same palm print on his journal as the palm print on the wheel and he was in Gravity Falls to boot. He considered his options carefully and decided to gamble on it. The odds of Ford realizing his true nature and finding the other signs before it was too late were slim. 

He got Stanford’s trust and began dropping hints about the Portal. Ford became interested and they began making plans for the portal, he said he thought inviting his engineer friend from college would help move things along faster so Bill allowed it. Soon he realized that four eyes was The Spectacles, sign of the scholar. He realized how potentially bad it could be for two of the signs to be working together on the project. He told Stanford to not tell anyone about Bill, which seemed to help keep four eyes from bugging him for a little, but he started getting snoopy with Stanford’s things until he got distracted with his wife leaving him, after that, he and Stanford started macking on each other, so he was even more distracted! 

The situation seemed to have worked itself out.

Then Sixer went missing.

Missing enough that not even Bill could figure out where he went. He completely vanished into straight air. Bill was so close this time, too. He was about to really give up on Stanford and try working with McGucket when Sixer showed back up out of nowhere.

Once he fell asleep, he met with Bill and started explaining where he was. 

In the space between universes exists a train that picks up passengers from all over the multiverse, Bill has heard. The train is believed to house many pocket dimensions, as well as reside in a pocket dimension it projects around itself. The rumors would do nothing but tempt and mock him over the last few millennia. Bill wanted that power, he wanted to be able to escape the collapsing space that was the Nightmare Realm, preferably before it collapses around him. He is bound by the laws of the Nightmare Realm which is why he was banished there in the first place. He can’t really create much there, the entire realm was constantly shifting, the lack of stable physics had originally attracted him but now that he knows that a lack of physics is just as restrictive as some of the laws of physics, he just sees it as the trash it is. He’s been trapped in the garbage dump of the universe for at least one trillion years and the train could’ve been his way out.

To hear that his star puppet was abducted by the train that he wanted so badly was infuriating. If anything happened to Sixer while on that train, he doesn’t know if he would’ve been able to manipulate four eyes into finishing the portal. He would’ve remained trapped for who knows how long. 

He didn’t let Stanford see that he was angry, of course, he needs to keep his benevolent muse routine up for Stanford to trust him. He told Sixer about what he knew about the train, made up a few things here and there to fill in a few gaps Sixer may have been able to see otherwise and let him run himself into a few logic loops in his excitement. Sometimes misleading him was so easy it was boring. He was thinking that while his puppet chattered on when Sixer mentioned his brother.

“Wait, the brother who destroyed your project?” He asked to clarify. Despite knowing plenty about lots of things pertaining to Earth 46, he didn’t know what happened that night. His sources knew that Stanley Pines went into Glass Shard Beach Highschool the night before the science fair, slammed his fist on the table, and left. After that, when Stanford Pines revealed his project to the board of whatever committee of WCT, the project wasn’t working since the wires were cut. The issue of course being that Stanley Pines didn’t cut the wires and someone else did. None of his sources could find out who did it, not even his illuminati officials; whoever did it, Stanford didn’t know that he knew it wasn’t Stanley.

“Ah.. I don’t think he actually did that on purpose, but that would be him. His name is Stanley, or Stan, but you know that.” He says, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. Of course he knew his name. Sixer had the habit of assuming people didn’t know things so he would say things like that and then retract his assumption. 

This habit was useful for him as he’d occasionally say things that Bill hadn’t known because of that habit. None of his previous pawns were so arrogant or used to explaining even simple things to others. Stanley was the reason for all of it: Ford being so naïve, so obsessed with proving himself, being in Gravity Falls, and especially being so used to explaining everything. 

He’ll have to thank him for it someday. 

Maybe after he bends all his joints in the wrong direction. 

“We made up on the train,” Sixer continues, “I told him to come live here with me and Fiddleford. I thought he could be of some help. Tomorrow me and Fiddleford will be cleaning up around here and preparing a room for Stan.”

More delays.

“Shame the train took you for so long, it really put you behind schedule.” Bill said casually, playing with the mindscape ever so slightly to make Ford anxious. He’s gotten good at doing that, making things slightly unsettling. Changing colors and shapes even by a little can set humans off. To think he used such strong-armed tactics with the Egyptians, convincing them he was a wrathful god when he could’ve done little things to play them like a piano. “I’d hate to see you getting even more behind when your brother gets here.” 

Ford shuffles nervously. Inwardly, Bill feels proud. 

Sixer promises that won’t happen and Bill believes him. 

That doesn’t stop him from helping that promise along, of course. 

Once Stanley arrives, he lets them have their time before tugging Ford’s strings a bit, jump-starting the continuation of the work.

Stanley is…

Interesting. 

There's something strange about him that he can't put his finger on. He suspects he might also possess one of the signs, but can’t be sure until the sign shows itself. He doesn’t think he’s ice, which he’s pretty sure will either be on one of those graphic t-shirts or entirely symbolic. He also doesn’t think it’s the Psychic’s Star who he thinks that might be Stanford’s mother or the Mackerel, who he’s pretty sure is their father.

Might be the bleeding heart. He seems really eager to reconnect with someone who kicked him out of his life to suffer for almost ten years.

Regardless, having three signs living together under that same roof is dangerous, especially since they have contact with the Psychic’s Star and the Mackerel. He needed contingency plans and a few protective measures. 

First off was to make Ford go faster. The faster the portal gets finished the less opportunity for anyone to realize something is wrong. He pulled Ford’s strings taut, filling the king’s mindscape with calendars and clocks, driving him to work harder and harder. 

He needs to dissuade him from using his knight, keeping him from aid will allow Bill to tangle Stanford up tighter. He feeds Stanley’s nightmares, not that they weren’t bad before he started manipulating them but now they feature the Sixer from today in the place of his father from the day of the science fair. A simple thing, too, since he already had nightmares of their father kicking Stanley out 

That dang rook needs to be moved away from position. Neither the king nor the rook have moved since they started playing. Castling is a strong move if the player can pull it off before it’s too late. McGucket is nosey at best and meddlesome at worst. He fed his dreams with happy feelings and images, which is new to him. He’s done that only a human handful of times, most recently with Stanford to help fuel his ego and aspirations. He fills his dreams with vague sensations that make him believe Sixer joins him in bed whenever Stanford is able to stay up the night so he doesn’t go downstairs looking for him. 

Finally, when Ford eventually realized how much time he wastes while asleep, he suggests adjusting their deal, giving him access to Ford's body whenever he sleeps or loses hold of himself in meditation. He makes sure to make it seem as worthwhile as he can. Not only can he help speed things up first hand, he also can use the contract later if he needs to make the final push. 

While working in Stanford's body, he isn’t able to manipulate McGucket's dreams like he wanted, but at this point they’re extremely close to finishing. Bill figures he’ll have some fun in Stanford’s body while the contract is still in affect, so he scared Stanley and then cut his hands on the broken ceramic. 

He hasn’t had a human body to play with in so long, he almost forgot what pain felt like. 

Human pain is a novelty to him, different in so many ways to the muted pain he feels whenever his manifested physical form is damaged. No wonder so many humans enjoyed pain, regardless of how used to it they are. 

Giving pain, receiving pain, watching pain. Many of them are addicted to it, even to the point of dying for it.

Stanford is far from being one of those kinds of humans, which is why he’s careful about the pain he allows him to feel. He uses earth magic to fix up his hands a bit so the cuts aren’t so bad that Sixer would question it.

He definitely doesn’t know what things taste like in Stanford’s body, humans have some weird reaction to taste that others don’t. Coffee, he knows, has thiourea in it, which some humans can’t even taste. He’s pretty sure Fordsy can’t, seeing as he drinks so much of the stuff. 

He brews up a pot and drinks it while it’s still scalding hot, experiencing both pain _and_ flavor at the same time. Sixer can definitely taste thiourea, it’s bitter and has a hint of iron as it burns down his throat, but the iron might be blood. 

Stanley catches him drinking the coffee which causes him to spill on himself. When he realizes that the coffee was burning hot, he stops him from continuing to hurt the body he inhabits. Doing damage control, he tries to sound rational, excusing his actions as necessary for working on the portal. Once he’s away from Stanley, he heals Stanford’s body but not entirely, leaving minor enough burns so that if Stanley ever mentions it to Sixer he’ll think it was an accident. 

They’re so near to finishing the portal that removing Stanley or McGucket from the picture wouldn’t slow them much if at all. Poindexter is vital to finishing, however. 

Better make IQ distrust his allies.

He decides Stanley will be treated as an obstacle from now on. Can’t be too gentle about it either. He starts to give Stanford a few reminders here and there about the science fair, sabotages Stanley’s work just enough to annoy Stanford but not enough to slow the project, tells him Stanley was pestering him during the night, gives him short nightmares of Stan breaking something of his, and finally, leaves a WCT pamphlet that was buried in a drawer on his bookshelf, well in eyesight. 

After just a day, Sixer becomes annoyed. Bill knows McGucket and Stanley are up to something, so he decides to make a last ditch effort that night and questions their resolve to finishing the project, adding in tiny reminders of the science project and McGucket’s college dorm room to try and sway him about both their resolves. 

If all goes well, when the two will do their thing, they’ll fumble with a cranky, arrogant, and distrustful Stanford.

It’s perfect.

He watches the very next morning they confront him. Four eyes leads which might throw off the plan but Stanley’s proximity seems to be doing it enough. IQ is pissed and when his brother says something, he _lashes out_. 

It’s beyond perfect. 

They look like they’re about to get violent when four eyes steps in.

Spectacles, ever the seer of paths, stops them before it can even start. He makes Stanley explain more about the coffee and Bill has a bad feeling about it all.

Stanley snitches and it’s only a moment before Stanford explains it away. 

McGucket isn’t convinced, he asks Stanley for confirmation.

Stanford leaves.

“Ha HA! Guess we know who he trusts more now.” Bill laughs maniacally before-

Stanford is calling out to him.

Time to take matters into his own hands, then.

He doesn’t talk to Stanford, simply waits for him to give in to his own mindscape enough for Bill to slip into his body fully. 

Bill opens Ford’s eyes.

“Time to get this show on the road, boys.” 

He opens the elevator, smashes the top floor controls, and rides the elevator down to the portal room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are gasoline and this fic is a car.


	5. Arms outstretched

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan flies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow another long chapter? Yea, boi.
> 
> I figured I skipped out on a chapter Thursday so I really should just post a long one today. I put a lot of work into this chapter, at least 5 hours of writing in total.

He felt like he was going to either yell, hit Ford, or puke, possibly all three in that order if he really can’t help himself. If he were the same man he was before the train, he might’ve done one of the two first options, maybe both; he's not sure what gave him the puke response, but he hadn’t felt that before the train.

When Fiddleford got in-between him and Ford, he had a moment to have another reaction: breathe. He takes a breath and thinks of how Mirror Stan had been so desperate for him to not fight with Ford. He breathes and fights down his fear and anger brought on by Ford’s words. 

His and Ford’s angers could be explosive, Stan had a shorter fuse and his anger simmered low after the initial blast, Ford had a long fuse that built and branched off until it all exploded all at once and burned hot and long. He would pull together every past fight, every minor scrape, every little annoyance, and use it as fuel. He kept grudges from fights they had before they were in fifth grade and used them to barb his words in fights they had ten years later.

Because their angers were so closely explosive but in wildly different ways, they were perfectly destructive together. Stan’s short fuse would speed up Ford’s long fuse, Ford’s hot burning anger would just heat up Stan’s.

If Stan kept his anger from exploding, he wouldn’t speed Ford’s fuse. The fight could be over before a real fight could begin. 

All he had to do, was breathe. 

It sounded like the hippy crap he usually avoided.

But it helped so he bared it. 

Unlike other fights they’ve had over the years, Ford becomes more reasonable after someone starts shouting. He explains himself calmly about the coffee and he-

He lies.

Of course Ford would lie. He always lied about the dark circles under his eyes, whether they were put there by a long night of studying or a long day of pummeling. He lied to their pa to protect themselves from his anger and disappointment and he lied to their ma to protect themselves and her from her worrying. 

In their teens, Ford started lying to Stan to protect his school record and standing. He wouldn’t tell him if he was hurt if it wasn’t visible and he wouldn’t tell him who it was if was visible. He didn’t want Stan to get into any more fights, both for Stan’s health and for their public record. Whenever he’d ask 'who did this' Ford would tell him that he wouldn’t tell him because it would only 'make everything worse'. 

The problem with this lie is that he can’t read it on Ford’s face. He doesn’t think it’s just that he can’t read him like he used to. Over the last few weeks, he’s noticed that Ford is just a bit different now. He isn’t a totally different person like he had thought on the train, he has most of his old tells and old habits, he’s just older. Almost ten years can change a person full circle, like he had, but Ford barely changed at all. To give it straight, he knows now he can reasonably tell when Ford is lying. 

If he hadn’t been there and didn’t know that Ford has been drinking coffee since he was thirteen and knows what he’s doing, he would’ve thought Ford was telling the truth. Ford doesn’t seem to be lying.

The problem is, either Stanford is such a good liar that he can convince himself, or he doesn’t remember pouring a basically boiling pot of coffee all over himself. He would be actually impressed if it we’re the first option, but he really doesn’t doubt it’s the latter. 

Now the question is: why doesn’t he remember? Was he really that sleep deprived? Looking at Stanford now, he doesn’t seem sleep deprived. Driven and maybe insane, yes, but he doesn’t have the bags under his eyes he had been growing since they were thirteen and he picked up coffee like other kids picked up cigarettes. He looks more rested now than Stan had ever seen him. He had been looking like that for weeks now, too. 

Ever since he seemed to have stopped sleeping entirely.

Stan was at one point a heavy sleeper, but after nine years of being homeless and wanted by people more dangerous to guys like him than even cops, he learned to sleep on the fence between barely awake and dead to the world. Being semiconscious of your surroundings at all times kept you alive. He could hear when Ford would eventually go off to bed or not or when -more often than Ford deciding to sleep- McGucket would go downstairs and drag him to bed. Which, yeah, pretty obvious what that meant, but at least Ford was getting sleep in the end. 

He stopped hearing anyone go up to bed after McGucket would. At first he thought they had a fight, which he should’ve heard unless they fought in the basement, but after the mug breaking accident, he realized he wasn’t sleeping more than an hour at a time. 

People can’t work on an hour or two of sleep. He remembers Ford once explaining that people can work on a minimum of five hours of sleep a day, going on a crazed rant about calculations he’s done in order to maximize conscious hours. Part of it involved injecting himself with a chemical to knock himself out, he remembers. He also remembers he ended up grabbing him and wrestling him into bed with him, holding on to him until he fell asleep. 

Back to the present: if he wasn’t sleep deprived, why doesn’t he remember?

Fiddleford doubts Ford’s answer as much as he does and asks him about it again. He breathes, hoping to calm his answer and actually think for a change. He’s about to answer when Ford storms off. 

“Stanford, wait! Come back here! Stanford!” Fiddleford calls, moving to the kitchen doorway and leaning from it, but not chasing him down.

Stanford keeps walking away. It sounds like he goes into the basement, the door swinging shut.

Fiddleford sighs, arms dropping from the sides of the doorway. He can tell that this kind of thing happens every now and then with them by how tired Fiddleford seems. 

“He wasn’t lying but he wasn’t telling the truth.” He says, staring at the floor. He’s trying desperately to think through the situation. It doesn’t make sense to him, how could he just not remember if he wasn’t sleep deprived?

“What was that?” Fiddleford asks, looking back at him from over his shoulder. 

“He really thought that was the truth, but I saw what happened,” he explains, running a hand down his mouth before continuing. “..he was pouring boiling coffee into his mouth straight from the pot.” 

“What in Sam hell?!” Fiddleford sits down abruptly on the edge of the table, putting his head in his hands. “He’s lost it! First the project, then that devil nonsense, now this.” He says sadly.

“Devil nonsense?” Stan asks the mourning hillbilly.

“He has these- things, in the basement study. Creeped me out the moment I laid eyes on them, he said they were ancient meditation things but it always felt darker than that.” He sees Fiddleford shutter, he drops his hands to hang in the space between his legs, slouching forward like he’s broken. “I think it’s got something to do with where he’s getting these ideas for the portal, but I can’t know for sure. He won’t tell me anything.”

Stan winces at the last part. He gets that, he really does. Ford was never the best at talking to people, stranger or otherwise. He either explains too little or too much when he’s talking, and he doesn’t always get to that point. He was usually blunt about mysteries they were solving, people usually didn’t take them seriously about weird things so he didn’t need to make up anything.

“Show me” he says. He needs to see what his brother has been doing with his own eyes. Maybe whatever Fiddleford’s talking about is connected with Ford burning and cutting himself. 

Fiddleford sighs and nods, standing up and leading Stan down to the basement landing. 

When they get to the elevator, the buttons are smashed, blood on the sharp broken metal and glass. 

“What the hell?” Fiddleford gasps. 

Stan looks through the window to see an empty elevator shaft. 

“Damn it!” He turns to Fiddleford, “He took the elevator.”

Fiddleford looks at him in panic. “He’s finishing the portal.” 

The room shakes suddenly, electricity filling the air ominously. 

“He’s starting the portal.” Stan corrects. “Is there any other way down?!”

“No! It’s the only way!” Fiddleford yells. “He- he could get hurt down there, the portal hasn’t been tested yet and who knows where it would lead!”

Fiddleford tries to pry open the control panel. Stan looks around for anything that could help. He runs back upstairs, taking two steps at a time. He bursts out of the basement staircase, running up more stairs to Fiddleford’s room. There, on his desk, is a small toolbox. He grabs it and runs back downstairs. Fiddleford looks back to him, he sees the toolbox and grabs it out of Stan’s hand. 

Before Fiddleford can pick out the correct tool, gravity shifts. 

Stan feels the stomach dropping feeling of his feet losing the floor. Everything that isn't tied down to the ground begins lifting up into the air. Fiddleford yelps as he floats into the air, swinging his arms forward out of habit to correct his balance. It sends the weightless tools flying out of the box and away from Fiddleford. Stan kicks off the wall, chasing after the screwdriver. 

Gravity returns and the screwdriver and half of the tools get smashed under a piece of equipment. Stan falls, looks up, and quickly rolls away before the machine can crush him.

He sits there for a second before lifting his head and looking down at the rest of his body, checking to make sure nothing got squished. He’s fine. He lets his head back down, heaving a breath to let the panic go before sitting up. He can’t get the tools, and even if he could, the handles being destroyed would make them too hard to use them as quickly as they need. He looks back at Fiddleford, who’s looking around, looking for the tools, probably.

“No good, they’re under this.” He says, patting the machine. 

Fiddleford’s shoulders drop. He looks back to the panel and the elevator door, trying to think of something. He makes a little gasp, grabbing the elevator doors. He tries to pry them apart.

Stan sees this and although he doesn’t see the plan, he rushes to help. Together they open the doors. Inside, a long elevator shaft is completely empty except for a long cable that lifts the elevator. The drop would easily kill them if they fell, and it would be stupid to try to climb down the cable. 

“You aren’t thinking about climbing down that, are you?” He asks. He really doubts he would be that stupid, but he can’t think of anything different. 

“Not exactly.” Fiddleford replies, looking down the shaft and then back up to the top. “If we time it right, we could maybe use the gravity disruption to get down to the second basement floor. The control panel there probably isn’t broken.”

“Are you actually insane?” Stan asks, staring at him like he grew a second head.

No wonder his brother likes him so much, Stan thinks.

“I might be, but it’s the fastest option.” Fiddleford looks to him with a grave expression on his face. “I couldn’t open these doors on my own, hopefully you can and we’ll only need one of us to go down the shaft like that. It’s not too far down, maybe eight or nine feet.”

Stan sucks in a breath, grimacing.

He doesn’t like how this is sounding. 

He’s stronger than Fiddleford, so he might be able to open the door by himself. 

“Theres a small landing you’ll be able to stand on if gravity returns to normal while you’re down there, but the ledge is mighty small.” Fiddleford says.

“…alright. I’ll do it.”

The plan is simple. When the gravity stops, Stan will push off of Fiddleford then push off the top of the shaft to get down to the next floor. When he sees the door, he’ll grab onto the elevator cable and stop himself, then it’s a matter of grabbing the door and parting them. They should be easier while gravity is off, so as long as he does everything fast enough, he should be able to open them and get in before gravity returns. 

Stan runs through the plan again and again as he tries desperately to avoid the wave of panic that threatens to overtake him. He can’t let his fear stop him or he could lose Ford again. His fear kept him up that night, led him outside, and led him to that gym. His fear and anger destroyed his life and Ford’s chance before, now it threatens to possibly take Ford's life and destroy his chance to be happy again. 

Fiddleford is behind him, his hands braced under his armpits slightly, hoping to lift and toss Stan up and forward when the time comes. Stan’s own hands are on Fiddleford’s shoulders to help push himself back and up more. 

“You’ll be fine, you can do this. The gravity fluxes should be increasing in duration, so you’ll have more time than last one.” Fiddleford reassures.

Stan hates heights. He hates this plan which will make him hover over a sixty-foot drop.

When gravity goes out, he’s pushed more than he pushes. He yelps, cursing. He feels his back hit the wall so he swings forward and kicks off the ceiling. He looks down and almost passes out, getting dizzy. Looking around Frantically, he sees the door coming up now. He grabs for the cable but he misses it. He floats past the door and panics. 

“No, Stanley!!” he hears Fiddleford yell from above.”

“No, no, no!” he yells, reaching for the cable again. “Come back here!” 

He’s looking up and to the cable so he doesn’t see the stabilizeR beam in his path before it hits his chin. It scrapes him, but he uses it to grab onto, flip around, and kick off of, jumping towards the door that’s a few feet above. 

On his way back up, he loOsely grabs the cable, using it to stop himself if he misses the door going up. 

He reaches down and grabs the top edge of the door as he slams into it with his gut. He groans in pain before pulling himself down.

He hears Fiddleford say something under his breath from above in relief. 

It ain’t over yet, but he feels the same. 

He carefully lets the cable go, using his arm to keep it in reach if he floats off again. He grabs both doors and pulls them apart as hard as he can. They easily come open and he’s pushing himself in when gravity returns.

Far below him, the elevator falls a few feet.

Which of course makes the cable he has resting against his left shoulder to go taut and pull him back out into the shaft.

He yells as he falls a few feet before he’s able to stop himself by grabbing the cable.

He’s breathing heavily as he holds onto the cable for his life. Only a few feet up, the door is open and ready for him to go through. Carefully, he starts to pull hiMself up, thankful that between the train and helping move heavy machinery, he’s in good enough shape to lift his weight. 

G-d don’t let him fall, don’t let him fall. 

He gets up far enough to be level with it. He tries to step into it with one foot and barely makes the landing. 

As much as he can, he tries to pull himself forward with his foot. The cable is too taut for him to swing or pull himself over, so he has to either wait for the next gravity thing or push off of the cable. His hands are starting to sweat, making him lose his grip with each second, so waiting isn’t an option. 

Sliding down a little bit more, he plants both feet on the ledge, moving his right foot over his left to turn himself around, facing the shaft rather than facing the room. Praying to a god he’s not entirely sure he believes in, he pushes with all he has off the rope and pitches himself backwards. 

For a second, he starts to sliP forward before his legs give out from under him, his butt hits the ledge and his feet go over it. He doesn’t waste more than a second before he's scrabbling inside backwards. 

He’s breathing roughly, shaking from head to toe. His gut and heart both clutch tightly as he breathes through the panic.

He almost died. 

If Ford isn’t in mortal dAnger, he’s going to be for all Stan went through looking out for his stupid ass. 

He stays there for a moment, then begins laughing manically. He can’t stop laughing, even as the panic showers over him and tears start streaming down his face. He stands up on shaking legs, trying to calm himself down and get to work. Turning around to the rest of the room he had never been in, his laughter is overwhelmed by the sight before him. 

All around the room, there’s statues and curtains of a triangle thing with a single eye. Almost all the candles around the room are out except the ones that surround a carpet with another triangle-with-eye guy. Stan is immediately creeped out. 

This must be what Fiddleford was talking about when he said 'devil nonsense', it really looks like the demon Worship stuff the news has been talking about. 

He puts out the candles quickly, ensuring that a house fire isn’t another problem they’ll have to deal with. 

The panel in this room is whole and he uses it to call up the elevator. 

Before the next wave can knock out the gravity, he rides it to the top to grab Fiddleford. 

“Oh my Lord, Stan, I didn’t think I’d see you again after you almost fell, are you alright!?” Fiddleford says in one breath, his hands on StaN’s shoulders, looking him up and down searching for injury. 

“Well I’m alive at least.” He laughs nervously. 

“And if your brother ain’t after all this I’ll drag him outta hell just to give him some of my own hell for putting us into this mess in the first place.” Fiddleford says, huffing. 

They wait for the next gravity flux to be over before going down, not wanting to be dropped with a lax cable and a heavy elevator. Once down, they see a bright light coming through the control room window. 

The portal shines a bright blue light that’s almost blinding in the darkness of the rest of the basement. In front of the portal stands a familiar figure.

Fiddleford rushes to the door and into the main portal room. 

“Stanford! What do you think you’re doing?!” Fiddleford yells, Stan meets him at the door right as Ford turns around to face them. In the dark shadow of his face illuminaTed from behind by the portal's blue, they see glowing yellow eyes and elongated pupils. 

“Well well well, I thought you’d be stopped by me destroying the elevator controls, great job figuring that out! You’re just in time tO be the welcoming committee to the universes biggest party!” Ford laughs manically. 

“…Stanford?” Fiddleford takes a step forwards, “What are you talking about?”

Ford laughs more, pointing at Fiddleford. “Oh that’s hilarious! You still think I’m Stanford? You really gotta get your eyes checked, four eyes.”

“If you’re not Ford than who are you?” Stan snarls.

“Name’s Bill, I don’t always look like this,” he says, gesturing to Ford’s body, “but you probably know that already.”

Stan thinks back to the candles that were barely melted when he put them out, to the carpet that was surrounded with them in the creepy room with creepy depictions of a triangle with one eye.

“You’re the triangle thing?” he asks, confused. Ford got possessed by a corn chip demon? 

“Hey, you’re smarter than you look! I’m glad I didn’t underestimate you, Bleeding Heart, especially with your little intervention.” Bill says, slyly wagging a finger at Stan. “I wasn’t entirely sure if Sixer was going to give me a chance to use his body after you made him start Questioning the coffee thing.”

“So you bUrned him, didn’t you?” Fiddleford accuses.

“Look who’s finally starting to catch up! How cutE.” Bill sneers delightedly. 

“And the one who cut him?” he asks

“What? Oh” Fiddleford grunts, “Stan, for gods sake, would you please tell me what you know _before_ we confront someone about their behavior?”

Stan wincEs. 

“Yeah, sorry.” He says. 

“Wow, you two really are stupid. Why did I even consider either of you a threat?” Bill wonders. 

“Shut up, you little one-eyed-“ Stan is cut off from his insult by gravity being interrupted, his feet once again going out from under him and lifting off the ground. 

The portal rumbles, the lights spinning faster as it begins to glow brighter.

“Stan!” Fiddleford calls, he looks over to see him floating as well. “We need to turn the keys, over there!” Looking to where he points, StaN sees the manual shut down keys. 

He swims himself over to the wall, grabbing the door with his feet to reach out and grab Fiddleford. They latch arms and Stan throws him to the keys. The door swings with the throw, throwing off Stan’s grip on it. He rights himself, hooking his foot under the door handle and pulling himself back towards it. He kicks off the door toward Fiddleford but in the air, he’s tackled by Bill. 

“No you don’t! I’ve got too many plans to have you screw them up for me, Stanley Pines!” He yells.

They grapple in the air, Stan trying to kick him away from himself, but Bill holding onto his arms tightly. 

He gets in a good punch before Bill manages to kick him away from himself. Stan goes flying into the center of the room, he tries to swim back like he did to get to the wall, but he can’t. He’s flying backwards and up and can’t stop himself. 

“STANLEY, NO!” Fiddleford screams.

Stan looks behind himself and sees what he’s talking about. Behind him is the portal which is getting closer and closer, pulling him in like a magnet. 

“Ha ha! Good knowing you, Stan Pines! You’re outta here!” Bill laughs.

He struggles to get away from the portal but nothing works, there’s nothing he can grab onto to pull him in, the nearest wires float only a few feet out of his reach as their ends are pulled up towards the portal like arms reaching out. 

He’s so close to the portal he can practically feel it consuming him. His mind is so frantic and Bill and Fiddleford are so absorbed in watching him fly away that nobody notices the figure float out the door and into the light. It kicks off the door hinge and towards Stan. 

Just as his feet go through the portal, he feels something grab his outstretched arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, y'all know the deal, probably.   
> Nk’g m jneixfiup gbsjhmct, wg esqmx saj Gwzts jrxri ns jyd rh xtaog hbsy, erq Xkoz ulaj mkywi ma tes ppy. Jbp zun'w wrj zt m Eijr pwbf jeyq, kca.
> 
> Whoever gets the very obvious but decently obscure reference gets a lollipop and also the key to this code:  
> B tghufat sair vhzitdk wzl gnbnf mo ax czeldw “bqxasae” ant zytdk tgbnjbnf tbnnt ghw Cbpoxr vts zuld mo hgtdkabm whmh sae rhcj iuoies, B tqbec mo ebgtke nnt vaas Yoqw cnnlc nsd, phhvh ny cnnrrx wzl ehmhdk tgx sjxldmom ae gts tisstiql oq mhd mermimz dtfmx. Iibmuqbnf ail bn z mermimz dtfmx urnnggm tn fimw Mzzntl im mhd Pomweqeamw mzgndjuhg, wgbcg mhdg dhlsnevdw immo zg emmiqx rdyeqxnbx wgbcg mond uo mhd kerm oe mhd vhzitdk wgxrd Ltzg wnnlc tllhss yake immo sae ohrstl zgd saem zes lauxd ar Fnkd hg tgx mzgndjuhg whmh zkmr husltqxtbaec
> 
> Thanks SO MUCH FOR READING AND COMMENTING, YOU GUYS, YOU REALLY BLEW ME AWAY LAST WEEK.


	6. Of Threats and Injuries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fiddleford is attacked

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No secret message today, folks, I'm tired and very drained.

Fiddleford watches in terror as Stan is once again put into mortal danger today. His foolish and harebrained idea put him in danger earlier but now it’s that Bill character and the damned portal they built for him that’s threatening to take him now. He can’t move as Stan is sucked up into the light, helpless to do anything but stare. 

But then, out of nowhere, a figure comes out and grabs him. They use one arm to hold onto a wire that’s being pulled up by the gravity the portal emits and the other to grab onto Stan’s arm. 

“What?!” he and Bill exclaims at the same time.

Stan grabs right back, and they pull him out of the swirling light. The light is blinding so much to where he can only really see both their silhouettes. Once they get back to the rope, they’re such a tangle that all he can see is a moving blob made out of Stanley and the mysterious man who saved him. 

But he has more problems to deal with. Bill turns to him and leaps off the wall in his direction. He turns in time to catch him before they collide. Ford is bigger than him, so while he might have strength used in wrangling pigs, he’s overpowered by Bill. Bill punches him, a solid hit right on the lower right side of his face, dazing him enough to let Bill grab him in a choke hold. He struggles to get free, and although being weightless lets him move more freely, Bill keeps his hold. 

He’s about to black out when something barrels into him. At first he thinks it’s Stan when he looks to find not only him but also-

The testing dummy?

“We have to shut it down, now!” Stan yells, wrestling Bill.

“I can’t!” he yells back, “It takes three hands!” 

Which now that he realizes was a huge safety flaw. Why hadn’t he realized the person who designed the portal didn’t want anyone to be able to stop it, no matter what they did?

Stan looks down at Bill, looking to think it over for a moment before leaping away and towards Fiddleford. Fiddleford swims himself towards the manual shut down and they reach the machine together. He takes hold of two of the keys while Stan grabs the other.

“Together now, on three.” He says, readying himself and looking to Stan, who nods. “One, two, three!” 

They twist the keys and near the portal a button emerges from the ground. 

It’s in the radius of the gravitational pull of the portal, another glaring safety flaw he never even considered before. 

“Really?” Stan groans, obviously annoyed by the location. 

He’s been put into the line of danger too many times today, he doesn’t want Stan to be put in danger for a design flaw he should’ve seen. 

“Stan, throw me.” Fiddleford orders.

“What?!” Stan balks, looking at him. 

“Throw me to the button! I’ll grab the wires here for safety, but I can’t get to the button without good momentum, so throw me!”

“You’re insane, but alright.” Stan says. 

Stan grabs him by the belt and collar, helping to make sure he doesn’t spin out of control, which is smart. He wraps the wire around his arm to secure himself. 

“Ready?” Stan asks.

No, he isn’t, but he supposes that he just thinks that because he wants more time on Earth before this plan gets him killed. 

“As I’ll ever be” he answers. 

Stan launches him as hard as he can, sending him flying towards the button. Stan couldn’t help accidentally spinning him just a little. He starts to summersault in the air slowly, trying to use his arms and legs to correct himself. He’s almost completely upside-down when he feels the pull of the portal, a few feet away from the button. He grabs an affixed cord, flipping completely by the sudden stop.

He starts to slowly sidle up the cord, shuffling his grip as his feet dangle in the air. 

“No, no, no!” Bill yells, struggling with the two wrestling him. “You’re making a huge mistake, Fiddleford McGucket! I have more power than you can even imagine!” 

He looks up, seeing the bright yellow eyes of the demon possessing his closest friend, the man who he’s spent his best and worst days with. He thinks about what Bill could do to Ford, how much he could hurt deep inside him, how much he could’ve already taken away. He’s not sure if Bill did something to Stanford’s soul or body, if he did irreparable damage to him or if he’s even still on this planet anymore. He thinks about his son and ex-wife, how much power does Bill have in this world? Could they be in danger by proximity to him? Could angering Bill put them all in danger?

He shakes his head, clearing it from all the anxiety ridden thoughts. If Bill completes his plan, they would be in danger regardless. 

He continues to climb along the cord, making his way to the button. It’s difficult with the cord being affixed to the floor so snugly, but he finally makes it to the shut off button. 

He slams his fist down on it and everything stops. 

Gravity returns and he falls flat on the ground, his chin banging against the button. He hears matching thumps closer than he had seen the three others last. He looks up at them, scrambling to his feet when he sees Bill still has a hold of Ford’s body. 

He rushes towards them, grabbing around his trunk, both arms under Ford’s arms. Stan readjusts his grip on Ford’s body, wrestling his arms behind his back. The mannequin let’s go, moving away and coming back with the rope they were planning on pulling it out with once the dummy test was done. 

Bill shoves forward and bites his shoulder. Red hot pain radiates from the spot, Ford’s teeth tearing through the flesh. He feels the teeth get pried open- luckily not torn away- by the hands of the testing dummy. He pushes himself away, gripping his bloody shoulder in pain. He watches though pain squinted eyes at Stan and the dummy tie Fords arms together behind his back and then down to his sides, Bill thrashing and kicking out in defiance. 

When they’re done, Stan pushes Ford’s knees in and brings him to the ground, half sitting, half kneeling over Ford’s lower back. 

The dummy turns to him, rushing over to kneel in front of him. It raises it’s hands to his shoulder, but Fiddleford scoots away. 

“Who and what are you, then? Have you been alive this whole time?” he asks it.

The dummy doesn’t say anything, just staring at him blankly. It raises it’s hands to it’s face, touching it’s face with it’s fingerless hand. It looks between himself and Stan. 

“Alright Bill,” Stan addresses the demon beneath him, “What is that thing?”

“Oh I know what it is. But if this world won’t be mine, it may as well be Hers, so I won’t tell you anything!” Bill laughs.

“Hers?” Stan asks forcefully. 

Bill continues to laugh. 

The mannequin raises to it’s feet, towering over him. He tries to scramble away, difficult with one injured arm. The mannequin steps backwards, like it’s unsure. It looks at it’s hands before it’s head shoots up. It turns to Stan and approaches him.

Fiddleford staggers to his feet.

“You stay away from them!” he yells. The mannequin stops looking back at him. Fiddleford doesn’t move forward as he was prepared to do. 

It looks back at Stan and raises it’s hand into the air.

It’s only a tick before Stan exhales, relieved. 

“That had me going there, Sixer.” Stan says. 

“Wait, Stanford?” He asks hopefully. The mannequin turns to him. “Are you really in there?”

The mannequin nods his head eagerly and Fiddleford feels relief flood through him, the adrenaline holding him upright now just making him shake. Ford moves to catch him, silently rushing to his side and putting his hands on Fiddleford’s arms. They get him to the ground and Fiddleford pushes himself against Ford in a mock of a hug. Ford wraps his arms around him. 

Although the hug lacks warmth, skin, or the familiar scent of Ford, it feels so comforting to hold him close again, despite his injury making it physically uncomfortable. 

After a moment, Ford pushes Fiddleford back gently. He looks at the bloody shoulder, barely touching it with his hand. Fiddleford still winces, and instead lifts his own left hand and applies pressure to it. Considering how strong a human's jaw is without any inhibition stopping someone, it could be very bad, not to mention the germs inside a person’s mouth. 

“We’ll need to go to the hospital for sure, get this cleaned and stitched up.” He says, grimacing.

“What do we do with him?” Stan nods towards Ford’s body, still inhabited by a squirming Bill.

He raises a good point.

“We could leave you here to keep an eye on him.” He says.

“And Ford could, what, drive you to the hospital in that mannequin body?” 

Another good point. He supposes that Ford could watch over Bill, but how strong is a mannequin body? 

Ford stands up, leaving his side. 

“Ford?” he asks after him. Ford doesn’t turn around, walking towards Stan and Bill instead. 

“Stanford?” Stanley says, confused. “What are you-“

Stanford motions Stan to get up. Stan moves off of Bill, holding on to him by the shoulder to keep him down. 

“You’ll just cause damage to your body, IQ.” Bill says, his face mushed against the ground. “Go ahead and try, it’ll be funny.”

“Can he hear you?” Fiddleford asks as Ford replaces Stan on top of Bill. Ford nods. 

“What are you planning, Sixer?” Stan looks at him, raising an eyebrow. Fiddleford does a one armed shrug.

Ford wraps his arm around Bill’s neck and squeezes. Bill begins choking audibly. 

“FORD! NO!” Stan pulls Ford away, letting Bill get more oxygen into Ford’s lungs. “What are you doing?! Are you out of your mind?!”

Ford pushes Stan off of him. Turning to him, putting his hands against the side of his head, like he’s asleep, then pointing to Bill, then pointing to himself.

“You’re trying to knock him out?” Stan asks.

Ford nods.

Stanley’s shaking his head, “That won’t give us enough time to get Fidds to the hospital, he’ll wake up before we even get there.”

Ford shakes his head, sharply.

He taps Bill’s forehead, Bill snapping at Ford’s hand as it retracts. Ford taps his own head with his other hand and then swaps them, tapping their heads again. 

“I think he’s saying he thinks he can get his body back if his body is unconscious.” Fiddleford says warily, unsure. Ford whips around and points at him wildly. 

“Alright, let me punch you, then. Much easier.” Stan suggests.

“Ford, don’t we have some Etomidate left from the gnome surgery?” Fiddleford reminds him. The twins look back at him, Stan with an expression of complete confusion and Ford without an expression at all.

“Gnome surgery?” Stan asks incredulously. Ford gets up, Stan moving on top of Bill. He runs out of the portal room, going up to his study where they left it last. “I’m sorry, 'gnome surgery'?” Stan repeats.

“We’ll tell you later.” Fiddleford waves off the question for another day, a day where the date of the world was not threatened. 

Ford comes back downstairs empty handed.

“Well, guess I’ll do what I do best!” Stanley exclaims. He turns Bill over so that he’s sitting on his chest.

“Woah there!” Bill resists, struggling against Stan. “What happened to not wanting to hurt your brother?!”

“He’s fine with it” Stan replies, looking back to Ford. Ford closes his fist into a thumbs up. “See? He’s fine with it!” He lands a solid left hook on Ford’s temple, Bill’s eyes rolling up before closing. Behind Stan, the mannequin slumps to the ground. Barely a minute later, Ford’s eyes open, the sclera white, albeit a little blood shot, and the pupals back to normal. 

Ford groans, shifting to his right side. Stan gets off him, untying his brother with deftness. Once Ford is untied, he pushes himself up to kneel and falls over immediately. Stan catches him before he can hit the ground. 

“Woah, hey, Ford, buddy, you alright?” He asks, leaning Ford to lean back against him, looking in his eyes.

“Y-eah, I’m fine.” Ford tries to pull away, attempting to stand but before he can push straighten his legs, he falls again. Stanley catches him again, helping him stand by sliding Ford’s arm around his neck.

“You have a concussion, you know the deal.” Stan tells him. Ford pouts but doesn’t move away from him again.

“Do you think you can walk?” Stan asks, looking at Fiddleford. He still feels heavy and shaky, but he might be able to if he can use the walls as support. 

“I suppose so,” he answers, moving his feet under him. “I’ll just have to go slow.”

Stan nods and reaches his hand out to Fiddleford. He accepts it, and Stan hefts him up too fast, his vision going black for two ticks before it clears again. Together the three slowly make their way out of the horrid basement, the portal looming dormant. They would have to deal with that and everything else pertaining to Bill later. Right now, they need to get him a doctor for his shoulder and someone to have a look at Ford's head while they were at it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Off to the hospital they go.
> 
> Fun fact, I was gonna have Fiddleford inject Ford with the drug they still had! I was like, mm I should undo that. So it didn't happen.
> 
> Not exactly sure what this chapter was, I decided to end it there cause I honestly didn't know where else to end it and it's 10pm here and I had a very busy and draining day that started with an early doctor's appointment where a lump was found where no lump should be and ended with dogsitting 4 dalmatians.


	7. Of hospitals and heartache

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ford considers his life choices.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alrighty everyone, sorry if you got an email or something about this chapter already getting posted. I took it down after posting it Wednesday cause I didn't like it. Now that it's been edited a bit I still don't know how to feel about it but we needed to make a bit of a transition chapter so it'll always feel a bit weird.

Between constant bullying and their own dangerous adventures, he and Stan have had their fair share of concussions. It didn’t make it any easier, walking up the stairs behind Fiddleford while dizzy and nauseated. Stan steadies him every step, half dragging him up the narrow staircase that hardly fits both of them side by side, even squished as they are. With the slow pace, he has all the time in the world to feel absolutely awful.

Without even mentioning the headache, nausea, and ringing in his ears, he feels terrible. The weight of his shame, broken trust, and self loathing feels worse than any of his physical ailments. How could he be so entirely blind? So blind that he couldn’t see so many things that should’ve been glaringly obvious. 

For one thing, Bill was right, he would change the world. He would willingly allow a- a demon made of pure energy into his dimension, gallivant freely in his mind, possess his body, and build a portal that could bring about the end of the world. Changing the world would be the least he did, an understatement of the millennium. _Look what you’ve done._

Another thing that should have been obvious: he once again put a project ahead of his brother and Stan very easily could have paid for it. They all could have paid for it, had Bill gotten what he wanted, but Stan had both feet in the portal before he grabbed him. Even if they had closed the portal, Stan would have been lost forever. He’s not sure what would happen to him, if he would freeze in the recesses of space immediately or dye of thirst on some desert planet; either way, he probably would have never seen him again. 

His aspirations and self-centeredness had ruined someone’s life before, now it had been extremely close to ruining every life on the planet. 

Can he do nothing right? He wanted to be remembered among the names of Einstein and Tesla, but it seems he should be among the names of Dr. Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll, and Dr. Walter Freeman. Cursed to create nothing but evil, harmful inventions. Nothing he’s made has been for good, nothing has helped anyone, only harmed those he’s closest to. He has to wonder what the point of his brain is, if, like his hands, it’s pointless except to make him suffer. _Worthless._

Especially now, since his head hurt greatly.

Once they make it upstairs, the three make their way to Stan's car. Fiddleford can get in without help, but Ford needs assistance to slide in next to him. Stan hops in front of the steering wheel, he starts it and not so gently drives away from the house. The way to the hospital is bumpy and nauseating, it takes everything not to pass out or throw up. They get there in one piece, mostly, and Stan helps both of them into the hospital. 

Once they get in, the young female nurse with dark brown hair behind the front desk looks up, smiling, before she freezes at the sight of them. She picks up a phone and her voice can be heard over the intercom as she calls for assistance. 

She gets to Fiddleford first, bringing a wheelchair with her. She sits him down and gently pulls his hand up, seeing the blood and bite mark, she has him keep pressure on it, pressing his hand down with her own. 

“Ey I asked for help in here!” she yells down the hall. A door opens and another nurse comes out, this one male. He makes his way down to them slowly. He looks at Fiddleford, goes around to the counter, grabs something, comes back, and tries to apply it over Fiddleford’s shirt.

“No!” She yells at him, smacking his hand away, “You dumb piece-“ she growls, not finishing her insult. 

“Well what do you want me to do?” he asks, huffing. 

“Go get Dr Simon.” She snaps. He rolls his eyes but walks down the other hall. “O alguien más competente.” She mutters. Stan snorts.

“¿Es un idiota?” He asks in a hushed voice. She looks at him, surprised, then chuckles a little.

“Sí señor.” She says with a shy smile. 

“Mi hermano es igualmente.” Stan replies. She covers her hand and laughs through it, he looks up at his brother and sees Stan beam. 

He shuts his eyes and fights down a groan. Is Stan really _flirting?_

This is it, this is hell. He died while fighting Bill and because of his numerous horrible actions, he’s in hell. This is just what he deserves, surely. Anything less and he’d be getting less pain than he gave. He just hopes Stan’s enjoying himself, wherever he is, because the thing holding him upright has to be a demon of some kind. 

Quick steps are heard racing down the hallway. They’re joined by a short woman doctor wearing a lab coat. She looks at him, Stan, then Fiddleford. 

“Alright, keep pressure on the laceration Ally.” She takes out a penlight and shines it into his eyes. “Can you tell me what year it is?” 

“1981.” He answers, blinking. 

“Well, you’re concussed, I’m gonna check your head, alright?” he nods in reply and she gently grabs the crown of his head, tilting his head down and to the sides, running her hands around to feel for bumps. “You have a small bump on the temple, but nothing’s bleeding, at least. Ally, switch, take him to the double room and give him a cold compress, we’ll join you once I get him fixed up.” She nods at Stan, “You know what happened?” 

“Yeah, I was there.” Stan answers gruffly. The nurse, Ally, he presumes, moves to his side as the doctor who he can’t remember the name of looks at Fiddleford’s shoulder. 

“Alright, you’re with me while Ally brings him to a room. I need to know what happened.” She grabs the handles of the wheelchair and wheel Fiddleford away. Stan looks to Ford for approval, like he has any say about where Stan should or shouldn’t go. He nods, letting Stan go with her. He jogs to catch up with her. 

Ally leads her to a room a few doors down from the one Stan disappears down into. The room is simple and clean, mostly white with light blue accents on the curtains, bed sheets, and floor tiles. She leads him to one of the beds where she sits him down. She leaves the room for a minute and comes back with an ice pack. The ice feels great on his head and helps soothe the throbbing pain that radiated from where Stan punched him.

“So what happened to you and your friend? You lose a fight?” Ally asks him, sitting down on a stool.

He panics with what to say to explain it to her, he can’t simply tell her the truth, while it used to work with the people back in Glass Shard Beach, people might believe him and become suspicious here. 

“We…” he can’t think of anything! “I don’t know.” He shuts his mouth before he says anything else. Better quiet than caught. 

“Short term memory loss, it’s pretty normal for concussions.” She shrugs. “Do you remember you name?” she asks.

“Yes. Dr Stanford Pines.” He’s honestly blown away she let him get away with that. Stan and Fiddleford will be able to lie about everything better the less he talks about it. 

“Oh, a doctor, huh?” She leans back with her clipboard. “Why aren’t you working here then?” 

“Not that kind of doctor.” He corrects, “I’m a scientist.” 

Her eyebrows shoot up and she points at him suddenly, leaning forward. “You’re the science guy!” she exclaims “People have been talking about you, guy! We never see you, you’re like some kind of legend creature!” _six fingered freak_

He flushes, ashamed. The town has been talking about him? What have they been saying? He avoided people, spending more time with the gnomes and fairies than the humans he lived near. The only time he went anywhere was when he would go to the store for food or the dinner when he ran out. He didn’t think that people would start talking about him like he was some local kook or legend.

He simply nods and looks away from her. He doesn’t notice he starts rocking slightly until she clears her throat. He takes to tapping each finger to his thumb to keep himself busy. _she’s watching you_

“I’ll uh- let you rest, then.” She excuses herself and leaves the room. 

Once he’s alone again, it’s easy enough for his thoughts to turn on him.

Just like in New Jersey, everyone in town thinks he’s a freak, and for good reason too, he’s a shut-in mad scientist with hideously deformed hands. The people in this town shouldn’t know him, anyway, he’s far too dangerous to those around him. Fiddleford and Stan both could have died today, all because of his hubris. Stan has been the victim of his failures once and now, so has Fiddleford, his blood tasting acidic on his tongue. _trust no one_

Perhaps he was better off alone, away from anyone and anything he could hurt. He feels his eyes tear up, threatening to over flow _they hate you_

Bill was his _friend_ , he trusted him with everything. He curls in to himself. This whole mess is all his fault, when Stan and Fiddleford tried to intervene he insulted Stan, pulling up words that must have stung like acid, they probably hate him. _leave now, get out_

The door opens and he jumps, startled. The nurse is back, opening the door for Fiddleford, the doctor, and Stan. Fiddleford’s shirt has been removed, a layer of bandages surround his shoulder, taped onto his skin. He’s leaning back against the chair, lax. Ford wipes his eyes clear, but when he looks back up, he catches Stan’s concerned gaze. 

Fiddleford is wheeled up to the bed and helped into bed by both Ally and the doctor. Fiddleford seems to be able to keep himself up, but from how relaxed he is, they must’ve given him something for his shoulder- he can still taste the blood- he wants to spit it out- later, he reminds himself, cutting off his frantic thoughts. He wipes his mouth with his hand, hoping to get a little of the taste out.

“Alright, we won’t keep you long, just wanted to check on you more myself.” Stan sits on the end of the bed as the doctor starts talking to him. “Alright, headache?” he nods, she runs down a list, a checkboard in hand and Ford answers mostly honestly, not wanting her to keep them because of him. 

She seems pleased with the results, but feels the need to ask who his primary was. He tells her that he hasn’t been to a doctor in some time and she levels and eye at him. With everything to do and explore in Gravity Falls, he hasn’t even thought about getting a physical exam, not that he had been in the habit anyway. He and Stan didn’t go to the hospital for regular visits very often, only going every few years or when they were exceptionally sick or hurt. Hospitals were for broken bones and stitches more often than check ups in the Pines family. 

She’s very unimpressed about it. She gives him a spiel about the importance of regular check ups and gives him a patient intake form for him to fill out. She asks the same question to Fiddleford and his answer is very much the same, to her annoyance. She sends them home with prescriptions of bed rest, a watchful eye, and better common sense, which Ford agrees with, considering the matter with Bill. 

_A nap sounds nice_

He agrees with whoever said that, but they need to put more security measures around the portal before something happens. 

They’re released from the hospital and walk back to Stan’s car. They don’t speak until Stan pulls out of the parking lot. 

“My, today sure has been a doozy.” Fiddleford remarks, his head completely lax against the back of the seat. “Mind bringing us up to speed, Stanford?” 

Ford winces

“I owe you both an explanation.” He begins. “I was stuck in my research when I found these writings in a cave…” he closes his eyes in shame before continuing, the words feeling sick and bitter against his tongue. “They spoke of a creature with answers, I ignored the warnings and summoned it. He told me I would _change the world_ ” he spits out. 

He can’t believe how much of a fool he had been to trust him.

“He led me by the nose and gave me the idea for the portal.” He lets out a shaky breath against the car window. He keeps his eyes closed, scared of seeing Fiddleford’s reaction in the side mirror or Stan’s in the rearview. All they worked for was meant for evil this whole time, a creation made by their own hands devised by an insane three sided demon. “This whole thing is my fault. I summoned him and trusted him because he told me I was _smart_ ” he laughs bitterly

“Ford this isn’t your fault.” Fiddleford says, cutting him from continuing. “That thing lied to you and deceived you.”

“If I hadn’t been so blind then we wouldn’t be in this mess!” He says, gripping his head in anger, “There were warnings on the cave wall, I-“

“Sixer how many warning signs have we ignored over the years?” Stan interrupts. “How many times were the places actually more dangerous than the schoolyard?”

Ford is reminded of the cave they found the Stan-o-war in, it had warnings of danger but housed a reward instead.

“The Stan-o-war, the Jersey Devil, the shrunken head, Shanklin,” Stan lists off with his fingers, “all good things we found in caves so when you find a thing that promises answers in a cave you think 'jackpot'”

“Y’all found a shrunken head in a cave?” Fiddleford asks.

“Point is,” Stan diverts the attention from Fiddleford’s question back onto himself. “yeah we have to be more careful when it’s ancient cave writings but I don’t think I can blame you for that.”

Ford doesn’t answer and doesn’t open his eyes, rubbing the back of his neck for comfort as he hides his face against the window. Neither of them continue, giving Ford’s space. He dozes in the car and falls into a dreamless state.

When he wakes up, he’s in bed. He tries to sit up, but his wrists are caught above him. He looks up and finds his hands in handcuffs looped around a peg in the headboard. In a chair pulled up near him is Stanley, a walkman in hand, fast asleep and snoring a bit. He looks rough, his arms have scratches along them, all of them scabbed but recent enough. He has bruises he definitely didn’t have before, even after they fought Bill in the basement. He has a Walkman over his ears and he can hear guitar coming from the headphones.

“Stan?” he asks, his voice course. His throat felt like sandpaper and the taste of blood was joined with a grainy feeling of dirt or sand. Stan doesn’t stir and Ford’s throat makes him not want to try yelling, so he leans out of bed as much as he can and tries to kick Stan’s shin. He’s barely able to, with how far Stan is away from the bed, the only reason he can reach his ankles is because Stan is slouching, his legs strewn out in his sleep. 

“Wha?” Stan jumps out of his chair, looking around the room. He looks at him, moving his head around like he’s trying to see something better. He pulls the headphones off to settle around his neck. “That you, Ford?”

“Yes?” He says, confused and worried. “What happened?” Had –

“Bill possessed you when you fell asleep in the car” Stan says, voicing Ford’s fears before he could finish his own thought. He hadn’t even thought about his deal. It wasn’t ended, Bill could possess him any time he slept. He could hurt Stan and Fiddleford or even turn the portal back on and end the world. He would be the catalyst for the end of the world, the vessel of a chaotic evil demon set on destroying the world in a massive party, he built the door and his hands could be used to turn the key. 

Stan’s, Fiddleford’s, and the entire world's blood could very well be on his hands. All it would take is for him to fall asleep and Bill could do whatever he wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright so this code is a bit different. 
> 
> KEY: The nurse who helped seemed quite familiar, even though we never meet her. What is her full name?
> 
> Tz mpvaw byi celw wfu'xt eidd l myirumi, utinv, zvfazv xgid ljc bqkfqds slgiiqz. Wsq ie em nods pst oyww eeql r qhlwtkvtqz. Nldrp'd Hyeemcfqafx uyez gfy mepo fvr?


	8. Of Carrides and Clashes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Stan reels in what happened with Ford while trying not to panic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOLY CRAP YALL IT'S BEEN FOREVER.
> 
> I am so so so sorry that I haven't posted anything in a long while, but y'all I'm a college student and my teachers decided to overcompensate our lack of physical class with a huge amount of homework.
> 
> In a way of apology, here's a really long chapter

Stan helped Fiddleford and his brother out of the car, leading them both to the hospital where a young and attractive nurse notices them and rushes to help. She checks on all three of them quickly, then yells down the hall for more help. Her snarky remark about the other nurse calms him down a bit, and as he banters in Spanish with her, he begins to loosen up more. To say he was high strung after everything that happened was an understatement. They went from confronting Ford about his actions to stopping a body stealing demon from ending the world in a matter of an hour and his heart was still revved up like a Cadillac from it all. 

When the doctor comes running up to them and checks them out, she takes the handlebars to the wheelchair nurse Ally brought for Fiddleford and tells him to follow her down the hall. He looks over to Ford warily. He doesn’t want to leave his brother alone, not after what just happened, but he’s being called to. He hasn’t had this reaction since that time in highschool when he found Ford locked in a closet with the word 'freak' written on his forehead. He feels better with Ford safely tucked against his side where he could beat down anything that wanted to hurt him. Ford nods to him, reassuring him he’ll be okay. Stan doesn’t believe him but follows after the doctor anyway.

He hates hospitals, he always has. Knowing Ford’s being taken care of by a nurse while he’s following after some lady doctor who only looked over his brother for a moment before giving him to a nurse made the feeling worse. Ford wasn’t too injured, sure. Nothing as bad as some of their rougher scrapes, for sure, but he still doesn’t like the idea of leaving him alone right then. That Bill character could possess people, so what could stop him from possessing Ford’s body again? Or Ally? He’s not sure what the rules of possession are for Bill, maybe he can’t possess anyone or maybe there needs to be a ritual. G-d knows what Ford did with the shrine he built to the thing. 

That’s another thing on his mind, Ford was never very religious, despite how they were raised. Their mom raised them reading the Torah and doing the feasts and all that, but when they were about nine, Ford wouldn’t do them wholeheartedly. He’d go along with everything, the goody two shoes couldn’t rebel against their ma like that, but he didn’t do anything without their parents watching. They talked about it, of course, like they did about everything back then. Ford had been questioning every little thing about religion since he was six then admitted he didn’t believe in it at nine. Stan wasn’t too sure about it, he had shrugged off Ford’s atheism and went along with his Ma’s beliefs until he was thirteen. He isn’t sure if his family really believes in g-d or not, but most of them enjoyed the culture either way. 

But then Ford comes along and takes up demon worship. 

It feels weird. Ford isn’t the religious type, what changed? Was it because Bill was something he could speak to? It doesn’t explain why he would be so devout to the thing. 

The doctor takes out some medical scissors and cuts Fiddleford’s shirt off, peeling the fabric away from his body carefully. The wound looks very obviously like a bite mark, teeth indented and in some places, torn skin mar Fiddleford’s shoulder. 

“Jesus. Did something bite him?” the doctor asks.

“Yeah.. wild dog got him.” Stan explains, crossing his arms and leaning against a nearby wall on the opposite side of the bed from her. “I heard screaming and ran outside with my gun. The thing had Fiddleford pinned down, it’s teeth over his shoulder.” 

She furrows her eyebrows, looking over the bite. It was bleeding sluggishly now, rather than dripping like it had been on their way here. Makes sense since Fiddleford had been keeping pressure on it this whole time. 

“The 'wild dog’, was it big?” she asked cautiously. 

“Big enough to take him down, so yeah.” 

“I see.” She says, pursing her lips. “We’ll need to clean this thoroughly, then, and you’ll probably need a rabies shot and some strong antibiotics. Bites are no joke, especially around here.” She raises her eyebrows and gives them both a meaningful look. 

Stan gives a little conspiratory nod, letting her think he knows what she’s talking about. It seems to make her happy at least, moving away to get some things from a few cupboards. He and Fiddleford have a silent conversation while she’s not looking, Stan raising his hands and shrugging at Fiddleford’s confused and mildly alarmed face. She gives him something, which begins to take affect while she cleans him up, as she does, Stan makes the 'bite' connection.

She thinks it was a werewolf or something, doesn’t she. 

Better than having to explain that a demon was possessing his brother while trying to end the world with a machine said brother made in his basement.

He loves this town. It’s not- not exactly the type of place he had imagined to spend his life in, but he had his brother with him and they could have all the adventure they wanted. 

Except for the business with Bill and the portal, that needed to be cleaned up before they could do anything. He doesn’t think Bill can just randomly possess anyone, especially considering Ford must have felt safe enough to be left alone, so they should be fine for a while. As soon as they leave, they’ll need to start talking about the situation. The sooner they take this thing out, the better. 

Dr Simon finishes up Fiddleford’s shoulder, spreading a tacky looking yellow-orange cream around the stitches. The stitches look pretty good, all things considered. It’ll leave a nasty scar, but nothing as bad as it could’ve been. She tapes a bandage pad to his shoulder, covering it with some sort of stretchy tan wrap which is wound under Fiddleford’s armpit twice to help keep some pressure on the bandage. She tapes that as well, to make sure it doesn’t slip off his shoulder.

They wheel him out of the room, Fiddleford slumped against the wheelchair. With Fiddleford taken care of, they only need to grab Ford and leave and get the Bill thing sorted. Once that was done, the portal taken down and the creepy shrines destroyed, they’d be able to move on from this. 

Dr Simon brings them to another room, this one with two beds. He takes a look at his brother and realizes that things might be a bit more complicated than he thought. 

Ford’s sitting on one of the beds, an ice pack pressed against his temple where Stan punched Bill. His head is hung low and his face is scrunched up, he hastily wipes his eyes but Stan could see the tears before they were brushed away. His brother looks like a wreck, angry and sad and hurt in ways he’s only seen separate before. Angry as he was when Stan broke his project, sad as he was when Ashley Burke threw punch in his face, and as hurt as he was when Stan found him in the kitchen with the scissors after a terrible day at school. Two out of three of those times, Stan was able to help Ford through it; this time is a problem he’s not sure he can solve by pouring punch over his head.

He doesn’t know how to fix it. Destroy a few shrines? Sure, they could even make s’mores over the fires. Dismantle the portal he helped build? Might be a bit complicated but it’s usually easier to take something apart than it is to assemble it. But Ford hasn’t cried much- as far as he knows- in years. He and Stan had been bullied by kids and adults alike- pa included- for years; both of them know how to take it like a man and not shed any tears. To see Ford crying over this made Stan think there was something he wasn’t getting about the Bill situation. 

Stan again recalls the shrines. He worshipped Bill like he was a god for damn sake. He’d have to be feeling either really betrayed or really stupid right now, maybe both. The fact is, Ford is wrecked and Stan doesn’t know exactly what he can do. 

Not that Stan is in much of a place to do something anyway. The fact is, Ford didn’t trust Fiddleford or Stan enough to tell either about Bill, and as far as he knows, Fiddleford hasn’t done anything to shatter Ford’s trust. On top of all that, Stanford just got his trust broken, he’s more likely to not trust anyone ever again than to trust Stan right in that moment. 

To make matters worse, the only one Ford is likely to trust right now is barely able to walk straight with all the pain meds he has in his system. Add in the whole 'doomsday device in basement’ thing, because why not wrap this whole crappy situation with bow made of a world ending time bomb. 

Stan feels his chest tighten and forces himself to breathe steadily, willing his body to calm down. It helps a little, like putting a band aid on a crack in a dam. He knows that panic will sit there, waiting until the worst possible time to flood through him and sweep his knees out from under him. For right now, he needs to get them all out of there and back home where breaking down won’t get him thrown into a straight jacket or drugged until he can’t see straight. For right this moment, he’ll do what he does best.

He talks out his ass. 

He gives the doctor everything she wants, being just the right amount of truthful to make it seem like he’s being completely honest. He listens to her lecture them about regular check-ups and having a normal doctor and stuff without fussing too much and before they know it, he’s helping his brother and Fiddleford back in his car. Once in, he relaxes against his seat and starts the car.

‘'My, today sure has been a doozy.” Fiddleford starts, relax against the passenger seat. “Mind bringing us up to speed, Stanford?” 

Stan winces. He knows Ford needs a minute before they start questioning him, but it doesn’t seem like Fiddleford gets that. Still, Ford answers. He tells them about a cave drawing leading him to Bill, about how he said they could change the world together. Through it all, Stan can feel how horrible Ford feels, every word spilling out with more and more poison until Fiddleford stops him.

“Ford this isn’t your fault. That thing lied to you and deceived you.” 

“if I hadn’t been so blind we wouldn’t be in this mess!” Ford shouts. “There were warnings on the cave wall, I,” 

“Sixer how many warning signs have we ignored over the years?” Stan interrupts, sick of hearing Ford beat himself up about it. “How many times were the places actually more dangerous than the schoolyard?” ‘or the town, or the beach, or the house,’ Stan thinks. 

“The Stan-o-war, the Jersey Devil, the shrunken head, Shanklin,” Stan lists off with his fingers, “all good things we found in caves so when you find a thing that promises answers in a cave you think ‘jackpot’”

“Y’all found a shrunken head in a cave?” Fiddleford asks beside him.

“Point is,” Stan diverts the attention from Fiddleford’s question back onto himself. “yeah we have to be more careful when it’s ancient cave writings but I don’t think I can blame you for that.”

Ford is quiet, and when Fiddleford is about to speak up again, Stan shoots him a look, shaking his head. He doesn’t think putting pressure on Ford would do much except hurt him right then. Let Ford cool off and they could talk more at the house or tomorrow, even. 

He keeps an eye on Ford, who’s curled up in the backseat, his head pressed against the window. He watches as Ford slowly relaxes. They’re about halfway home when he looks back again and sees bright yellow eyes open. 

“Shit!” Stan yells. He goes to pull over, but Bill in Ford’s body shoves forward, grabbing the wheel and yanking it into a hard left. They go into the middle of the road and incoming traffic, Stan managing to yank the car the other way before they could hit the other car. Horns blare and tires squeal as other cars dodge out of the way. Stan tries not to slam on the break in fear of flipping the car. 

Fiddleford grapples with Bill, tearing him away from the steering wheel. Stan stops the car, turning around in his seat to help Fiddleford with Bill. Fiddleford manages to get over the front seats and starts to wrestle Ford down. Bill gets a punch in on Fiddleford and Stan grabs Ford’s wrist. Fiddleford pulls Ford’s sweater vest up, his trench coat getting tangled up with it when he gets it over his face. Ford’s arms are awkwardly pulled up over his head and Bill is blinded; Stan grabs the other wrist and pulls them together. Bill starts kicking out blindly, only managing to knee Fiddleford in the back when Fiddleford is straddling him. Fiddleford pulls off Ford’s tie and hastily wraps it around Ford’s wrists. 

Stan let’s go of Ford’s wrists and look back to the street. People are getting out of their cars now, looking at them, never a good sign. Stan decided that they needed to get home as soon as possible. With that thought, he did what his eldiablo can do best and goes from 0 to 60 in less than ten seconds, tearing away from the town like a madman. Fiddleford lurches but manages to stay on top of Ford by locking his legs around Ford’s torso. Once they hit the treeline, Stan slows down just a bit, not wanting to hit a deer or whatever decides to be in the middle of the road today. He keeps an idea on the two in the back, Fiddleford manages to keep a hold on Ford, but Stan won’t take his chances and drives quickly to the house.

As soon as he can, he pulls up to the front porch and hops out. He opens the door closest to Ford’s head and wraps his arms around his chest. Fiddleford lets go of Ford’s wrists and Bill flings his fists backward to hit Stan in the face. Stan winces but keeps his grip, tucking his face into Ford’s neck and pulling him out of the car. Once he’s out from under Fiddleford, Bill kicks him hard in the face and chest, knocking him backwards onto the floor of the Stanley Mobile. Stan gets him out and spins them around, dropping them to the ground with Ford face down in the grass and dirt. Stan sits on him and looks back at Fiddleford who’s catching his breath after pulling himself to the open door. 

Bill is struggling under him, spitting out all kinds of threats and curses in ways much more gruesome sounding but also less threatening than all the threats he’s heard over the years. Maybe it’s just because it’s almost Ford’s voice or because he’s also doing it with dirt in his mouth but he can’t help but feel so not threatened by it. He’s about to roll Ford over and knock Bill out of him before Fiddleford lays a hand on his shoulder, shaking his head and breathing huffing shallow breaths. 

“No… I think we should- just leave him.” He says haltingly. “See if he- gets ejected without- us having to knock him out. Less violent.” 

When he’s able to, Fiddleford gets up next to him, holding Ford’s shoulder down so Stan can get off him and grab the other side. Together, they heave Bill up and drag Ford’s body inside. It’s slow going with Bill thrashing around but they make it up the stairs and into Ford’s bedroom. Fiddleford leaves and comes back with what looks like climbing rope to tie up Bill hog tie style. 

“Well unless we find more rope, I think that’s the best we can do.” Fiddleford sighs, sitting back. “I don’t think we could get him properly tied with one to the bed.” 

“Wait. I think I have something.” Stan says, getting up and running downstairs. He searches his car, finding a pair of handcuffs he managed to not break when he got out of them. He runs back upstairs and Fiddleford has an eyebrow raised at him, Stan wiggles the handcuffs and Fiddleford’s eyebrows shoot up, his eyes comically wide. Stan chuckles and he kneels down next to the two. “These for his hands, rope for a leg.” 

“I-“ Fiddleford starts. “I suppose now is not the time nor place for talking about why you have that.”

“No it’s not.”

“Well before you do that!” Bill exclaims before slamming Ford’s face into the floor. He’s about to do it again when Stan and Fiddleford grab him and pull him up. Together they untie him and wrangle him up again and into the bed, Stan keeps Ford’s hands still as Fiddleford locks the cuffs onto one wrist, around a bar in the headboard and onto the other wrist. They tie Ford’s foot to the other end of the bed so Bill can’t move too much. 

“That atta do it.” Fiddleford says. “Now you listen here, demon. I’ve been thinking long and hard about what I want to say to you.”

“Oh, is that what you’ve been doing? I was wondering why you were-“ Bill says, his smile inhuman on Ford’s face. 

“Bill when I find a way to do it, I will send you back to whatever hole you spawned in, I swear it.” Fiddleford snarls, stomping his foot.

Despite the fact that it feels like Stanford replaced Stan, he’s both surprised and glad that Ford found someone who’ll protect him in his place. Now, however, and until anything changes, Ford will have both Stan and Fiddleford to protect him, from himself or any other threat.

“You messed with my family you one eyed corn chip, so that goes double for me.” Stan says, smirking at Bill. 

Bill looks between the both of them for a moment before laughing. 

“Oh! Oh you think you can take me?” Bil says before laughing again. “I’m a being of pure energy who finds pain fun! You really think that a couple of mortal fleshy puny animals like you can possibly do anything to harm me?! You can’t, but it’ll be fun to watch for me at least! Oh here’s an idea, let’s see what fails you first! Your determination or Stanford’s body!” Bill starts laughing again until Ford’s voice begins to go hoarse. 

Stan looks over to Fiddleford, who looks mortified. Fiddleford sees Stan looking to him and instead of saying anything, leaves the room. Stan, stuck with the hysterical, demon possessed body of his brother, realizes that what Bill’s doing is what so many others have done or tried to do to Stan these past few years. Bill’s trying to get under their skin and into their heads. If they lose hope, there’s no helping Ford. They can’t let that happen. 

So, instead of leaving Bill with full reign of Ford’s body, he decides to make himself less of a target psychologically. 

He leaves the room, and when he’s out, the laughter stops, just like he thought it would. When he comes back, Bill is struggling to kick some slack into the tie around Ford’s ankle. Bill stops and looks up with surprise.

“Oh hey, you’re back! I really thought you already abandoned this guy.” Bill says with a too wide smile.

“That’ll never happen.” Stan bites, dragging a chair next to the bed and taking a seat.

“Never?” Bill asks, tilting Ford’s head. “Not even when he abandons again you like he did the first time?”

Stan swallows the sour taste that gives him. He’s just trying to get in your head, he thinks. 

“Cmon, you know it’ll happen eventually! Maybe you thought that after your little trip on the train that life would be all mystery and adventure again like it was before but Ford was planning on getting rid of you after the job was done, you know. I mean, who would want to share the limelight with his wanted criminal of a brother?” Bill mocks.

“You don’t know anything about him.” Stan spits out at Bill. 

“Oh boy do I! I know him better than you at this point! I’ve been watching him for a while now and in his head for just as long!” Bill gleefully sings “You’ve been back in his life for what, a few weeks? You know how much a person can change in ten years? I bet you do, eightball!”

Stan feels himself stop breathing. Stan went by that name with Rico in Colombia, if Bill knew about that, things could become really hairy around here. A cherry on this bad situation Sunday. 

It’s only when he clenches his hand does he remember what he had gone into the other room for. The walkman was something he liked to keep hold of, even when times were especially bad and he was pawning off everything else. It’s been one of his only companions through the years, and now it’s come to give him comfort again. He puts the headphones on and plays the tape. He had swiped a Rolling Stones tape at some point, thinking it was a wallet while pickpocketing in Vegas. All the other tapes were of various fringe bands he’d never heard of even on the radio, most weren’t half bad, but that’s probably just because it’s all he has. 

As Can’t You Hear Me Knocking starts playing, Bill’s voice gets harder to hear until he can’t hear him at all. Bill notices this, taking to yelling at Stan, if the flush in Ford’s cheeks and the furrow of his brows are any indication. He gets a ticklish feeling in his gut, a familiar feeling of his guts squirming at the sight of Ford angry. He’s not afraid of Ford, he’s family, and Stan knows Ford doesn’t pose much of a threat aside from when Bill is possessing him. He guesses that Bill might freak him out a bit, which is completely rational, seeing as he’s basically an actual demon and all. 

He continues to ignore Bill until he starts kicking him, to which he moves his chair away from the bed a few feet.

He settles in and falls asleep in his chair.

He wakes up to someone kicking him. He wakes with a start and then notices that Bill has managed to kick him once he slouched in his chair while he was asleep. 

“Wha?” He jumps out of his chair, looking around the room. He looks at Ford’s eyes, moving his body one way and then the other to see if he can see the yellow sheen in his eyes. He pulls the headphones off to settle around his neck. “That you, Ford?”

“Yes?” Ford says, confused. Ford’s voice sounds awful and Stan grimaces in sympathy. “What happened?”

“Bill possessed you when you fell asleep in the car” Stan says, and immediately Ford’s face pales, all the blood rushing from his face in a look of pure terror. Stan has the feeling that Ford knows exactly what happened, like he thought there was a chance of something like this happening but that he had hoped it wouldn’t. He’s really getting tired of that, of Ford not talking to them about this stuff. He and Fiddleford could be there for him with this, but without the information that Ford’s keeping from them, they’re going at this blind. 

Ford crumples as best as he can with three limbs tied down. It’s pitiful, and Stan sees more of the meek kid he remembers now than he has this entire time since the train. Or maybe longer before then; since highschool or prom specifically.

“Ford, talk to me, here. I need to know what’s going on.” Stan begs. Or implores, if he were taking from Ford’s dictionary. 

“Bill can possess me when I fall asleep.” Ford says, staring at the ceiling. 

Stan rolls his eyes. 

“Well, yeah. I think we figured that out already. Would’ve been great to know a few hours ago.” Stan says. He thinks that might’ve been a bit sassy, but he thinks he’s earned a little bit of sass.

Ford squeezes his eyes shut, like he’s trying to rid himself of a thought or image. 

“Yes. I know. I’m sorry. I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of that happening before we left the hospital.” Ford shivers before his eyes suddenly snapping open. “Wait where’s Fiddleford?! Is he okay?!” He pulls on the cuffs at his wrists, which remind Stan to get him out of them.

“He’s fine” Stan answers as he pulls out the keys and releases him. Ford pulls his hands to his chest, rubbing the red marks around his wrists. Cop cuffs, he knows, aren’t very forgiving. “He’s researching, or something. Went downstairs a few hours ago.” 

“I see.” Ford says, watching the floor as he absentmindedly rubs at his wrists. “..We should.. go join him, I suppose.”

“Alright but before we go, is there anything else we need to know about Bill? Anything at all?” Stan decides he’s going to be really nosy from now on with things like this. Otherwise, Ford won’t tell them anything until it’s almost too late. 

Ford looks thoughtful for a minute.

“..not that I can think of.” He says finally “I think I told you everything in the car, sans the possession part, but otherwise? Nothing.”

Stan searches Ford’s eyes again, this time for deception rather than a yellow sheen marking possession. Ford doesn’t give him anything other than some regret and a sense of hopelessness. 

“Alright. Let me or Fiddleford know if you think of anything.” Stan shrugs. “In the meantime, is there any chance we can stop him from possessing you when you sleep? Cause as good as you are at ignoring basic human necessities like eating, sleeping, and drinking anything other than coffee, I don’t think you’ll be able to avoid sleep forever.”

Ford furrows his brows in thought. Some people would think he looked angry like that, but Stan was always reminded of an eagle or an owl or something. It doesn’t help that they both have bushy eyebrows and distinctly Jewish noses. 

“I’m not sure what we could do. When-“ Ford takes a remorseful breath. “When I made the deal, I promised him to be partners forever. From now until the end of time.” 

Ford’s eyes change, then. He looks angry then, and sad, like he had in the hospital. Stan realizes just how much this hurts for him, now.

“I don’t know if it’s even possible.” Ford surrenders, his body slouching in a way he’s never seen his uptight nerdy brother do before. Stan finds that today is a showcase of just how different Ford has become. Gone is the meek, uptight nerd and here is a strong, pessimistic adventurer and scientist he would dream of. 

However, he also finds that things were still the same, like his vindictiveness, his nerdy glee, and his gullibility. Those traits will likely never leave him, if they’ve lasted these thirty years, they’re likely to last the next thirty. 

But if there’s anything in Stan that hasn’t changed, it’s his inability to accept the impossible. 

“Well screw that.” Stan says, clapping a hand on Ford’s shoulder, “Listen to me, Ford. If there’s anyone who can fix this, it’s us.”

Ford looks stunned, he takes a breath like he’s about to say something, but instead releases it in a huff and smiles at Stan. Stan beams at him back, genuinely glad Ford let him try to cheer him up. 

“Alright, let’s go see what Fiddleford has been up to. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I see him and think Frankenstein or something, and I don’t see him being alone while hyped up on pain killers as a good thing” Stan jokes, throwing his arm around Ford’s shoulders and leading him out of the bedroom. Ford chuckles and lets him be ushered out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments give me life and tell me you guys haven't left me after my hiatus. Please, even a smiley face is like rain in a desert for my aching heart.


	9. Of Ideas and Laughter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fiddleford brainstorms, makes tea, talks about a different kind of tea, and then they all brainstorm together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big oops on me, my bad my homies for leaving you all for *checks notes* *cringes*
> 
> Anyway, my brother got married and my sister is moving into his room from our shared room and school is hard rn but I decided that before I write more of my Umbrella Academy au, I should finish Book Two. It’s not far off so um, yeah. But I have plans for a book three which focuses on two other characters we haven’t seen in a while, as well as a funny little thing as an epilogue for Stan and Ford.

Fiddleford went downstairs, not only to escape the _demon_ currently _possessing his boyfriend_ but also because he was needed elsewhere. Holding Stanford’s body down wasn’t what he needed to do. Stanley could hold him down just fine and if he couldn’t, he’d always holler down to him for help. Instead, Ford needed something made to keep that demon out of his head.

He opens up Ford’s journals, looking into any kind of information on Bill's type of demon he might’ve written down. Say what you might about Stanford’s gull, he took extensive notes on whatever he researched, even if he might not take to mind how a reader might read them if they needed something quick. He doesn’t find anything in the first journal about the demon, and albeit there are some things in the second journal that allude to him, there’s not much about Bill personally. Third time’s the charm, as they say, as sure enough, Ford made notes on his deal with Bill in the third, a drawing of his six fingered hand shaking a hand of pure black surrounded by fire greets him.

The self-importance in Ford’s tone as he writes about accepting a deal from his _Muse_ , as he calls that wretched thing, leaves a disgusted taste in his mouth. Ford truly thought this creature was some sort of angel sent from heaven to guide brilliant minds like his, he realizes as he reads Ford’s reverent words. He knows pride comes before the fall, and that arrogance often leads to ignorance, but seeing it so plainly in his best friend is something horrible.

He reads words from Ford’s own hand as they talk about him. Words that were never meant to be read by his eyes spoke of Ford’s attempts to stay awake for long hours. He remembers all the nights they spent working their tails off to finish components or blueprints for the portal, nights where Ford never came to bed, despite not making much progress after he went to bed himself. Ford would fall asleep soon after he went to bed despite how hard he tried to continue to work, at his desk rather than in their bed. He was frustrated at the rate they could work before the train, then when they had Stanley helping them, he was so excited to finish since they were so close that he would make such a deal with a demon to work day and night. 

He reads what Ford thought of him, in how Fiddleford didn’t understand and would fret if he said anything about Bill. 

Damn right he would ‘fret’ about his and Bill’s deal. He thinks just about anyone would find the idea of a demon manipulating their boyfriend distasteful at best and downright terrifying at worst. Anyone with any sort of common sense, at least. 

He shouldn’t blame Ford. He doesn’t, really, he knows that Stanford is the smartest person he’s ever met but even the most brilliant people can be manipulated and hurt. The people who are manipulated aren’t really to blame. 

It’s not fair, honestly. Despite everything that happened with Stanley, Stanford is a good man who doesn’t deserve this; no matter how it came to happen.

All that matters now is getting that demon out of his head and saving the world. 

That’s the plan, anyway. 

To be completely honest, he’s a might bit scared. Between the terrifying meeting with the gremloblin and other terrifying Gravity Falls anomalies and this Bill situation, he itches to do something drastic to sooth himself. He knows that itch is a demon of itself, addiction, calling to him like it called to so many of his cousins and grandparents before him. His family, namely his auntie Myrtle, who seemed older than time itself from when he was a kid even to now, would tell him that there would come a time when the soul itches for something to poison itself with. Something to make the mind slow and soft when times were at it’s hardest. Be it alcohol, drugs, or infidelity, the mind longs for something to burn itself with. 

He thought his itch would be tobacco, something to rot his teeth or lungs as it soothes his mind. Stanford helped him quit, he made a patch that nearly made the itch disappear completely. He knew from then on that this was a person he ought to keep, something that continued to grow into a true love that could catch the moon with a lasso and bring it down to earth if it wanted to. 

Now though, he itches for something else, something he knows for a fact could work but, like Ford said, could be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands. 

It could make another problem when the one they’re dealing with is already so stressful, not to mention that it could make him useless in helping solve the issue. 

He had to be strong. He had to help Stanford.

He copies down his own notes on the demon from the journals and everything they’ve found out about him during this whole mess, gently correcting the fake information Ford had written down before. Once that’s done, he gets to work brainstorming. 

It’s about three hours later that Stan and Stanford come downstairs.

“Stanford, how are you feeling?” He scootches his chair away from the desk to look at him properly. He straightens, his back popping more than a few times as his spine protests being bent back into alignment; Stanford would chide him about proper posture, warning him of becoming bow legged and hunched if he wasn’t more careful. 

Now, Ford just swallows hard before croaking out an answer. “I’m okay now.”

“Sweet lord, Stanford,” he breathes, “you sound worse than a half dead toad’s croak.”

“Gee thanks” Ford grimaces. 

“It’s the yelling.” Stanley explains, “Bill was pissed I was ignoring him and well..”

Ford rubs his throat and looks away. He wants to comfort him, but he doesn’t want to let Stanley onto their relationship while they’re dealing with the Bill situation. He sighs quietly.

“I’ll fix up some tea, it’ll getchu healed up in no time.” He nods to Ford who peeks up at him before turning to the kitchen. He listens as the twins flip through his notes, seeing what he came up with. Most of the ideas, he’s sure, are likely to be as helpful as a trapdoor in a canoe when it comes to Bill, seeing as he doesn’t quite know enough about his physicalities to properly prepare a tool of any kind against him. 

He’s still feeling bruised, a reminder of their brawl in the basement only a dozen hours ago. He doesn’t even quite know what time it is. He’s tired and just wants everything to stop for a few minutes so he can rest, but it won’t. They need a solution and they need it immediately. He goes through the motions of making tea, too tired to mentally think through the whole process as he worries about their predicament. 

He isn’t so sure what to do but there has to be something.

He makes his way back with three cups of tea, remembering last minute that Stanley was here and might enjoy a cup. The boys are bent over his notes, reading and discussing the plans like he thought. He hands them around and sits back down at his chair. 

“Thanks” Stanford croaks as he takes his cup. He drinks some down immediately, not minding it being mildly scalding, as usual. He measures for that, and doesn’t boil the water completely when making tea for Stanford. His mama always said to boil the tea or coffee thoroughly to bring out the whole flavor, but Stanford would just burn his taste buds right off if he did, and Stanford drinks it too fast for him to notice the flavor either way. 

He nudges his twin with an elbow. Stan looks over at him with a grunt and eyebrows raised in question. Fiddleford watches them have a silent conversation with amusement. Stan catches on and scoffs out a “thanks” to Fiddleford. He smiles at the two as Ford rolls his eyes and punches Stanley in the arm.

He’s just so happy to see them behaving like brothers. Despite everything else being wrong and broken and fragile, at least they’re all in this together now. No more secrets, no more going behind the other’s back. He remembers tales that Ford would tell him about the two of them against terrible monsters and bullies alike and knew that if anyone is able to overcome this mess, it would be them, together. 

Almost no secrets, but he suspects that Stanley might be more perceptive than he lets on about that.

Nevertheless, he doesn’t think that’ll be an issue right yet. They have few secrets between them and together they could take on the world and that’s all that matters. 

“So out of all these,” Stanley begins, turning around to him and leaning back against the desk. “which do you think would work best against the guy?” 

Ford looks back down at the notes, shuffling the papers around. 

“Well, I was partial to the mind scanner, that way we can at least see where he is in Stanford’s mind.” Fiddleford scratches at his stitches on his shoulder, the darn things itching like bed bugs. “As for a long term solution? I had a few ideas about some kind of electromagnetic emitter or something like that that could push Bill’s presence away. Since I don’t know much about him, I don’t think any of my ideas will be very useful, but it’s a start.”

“I don’t think he’s affected by much in our world.” Stanford croaks. He sends him a pointed look and Stanford takes another drink of his tea. “We need to make me more difficult for him to possess, somehow. He can only possess me when I-“ 

Fiddleford gets tired of hearing him speak like that, cringing whenever he clears his throat and instead shoves a pencil and notepad to him. Stanley snickers and Ford gives his brother a glare. 

‘he can only possess me when I’m asleep’ he writes quickly. ‘so I’ll just have to stay awake until we can come up with something.’ 

“Well it’s not much but it’s something” Fiddleford sighs, leaning back with his cup held up near his chest. He takes a small sip in thought. “It gives us more time, I suppose. You can’t stay awake forever, no matter what some people may think.” 

“We could tie him to the bed every night, just like what I’d do during finals week when we were kids” Stan grins at him and nudges him with an elbow. Fiddleford laughs and Ford’s face turns a bright red, making him laugh harder. 

“Oh I bet he was terrible. He used to do back-to-back all-nighters back in college.” He tells Stan, ignoring the way Stanford buries his face into his sweater. “Would pass out in the hallway after class waitin' for me to finish my class. I’d drag him back to our dorm and he’d sleep the day away, absolutely dead to the world.” 

Stanley laughs, slapping his hand against his knee in his giddy fit. Stanford sinks into a chair and pulls some papers closer to him, ignoring them. He chuckles, hoping Stanford isn’t actually angry with them. He doesn’t think it’s actually hurting him, considering Ford’s anger typically burns hotter than this. He leans over to him and claps a hand on his shoulder. Stanford looks up at him, still red in the face but more exasperated than angry, it seems. 

“Ford told me that you would get the two of you into all kinds of trouble, I got him into a fair amount as well, if I do say so myself.” He tells Stan, changing the topic a bit right of what they were talking about before. “He helped me out with a stink bomb we threw up into a bully’s dorm. Made the whole level smell like devil’s grass so much that he got kicked out of the dorm the next day.” 

“No way” Stan guffaws “I think if we tried that back in highschool they would know it was us. Sixer and I were the prime suspects for everything by then.”

“So I was told!” Fiddleford laughs back, “Although I also recall him saying that they were often right to think that.” 

“You got that right.” Stanley grins to him, “Although most of it was just payback, so I’d say it was justified.” 

“Mess with a bull and you get the horns.” He says, smiling into his cup.

“Damn right.” Stanley takes a sip on his own tea.

The whole room is so much lighter than it had been when the twins came down. It had been like a funeral it was so doomy. Between seeing Stanford’s notes on Bill and hearing what that monster did to Stanford’s voice, the room felt like all the shadows had eyes and the silence could swallow people whole. The world outside was empty and gone and all they had were these haunted walls and the dread in their hearts. Now, he feels like that slightest bit of reprieve was like bread to a starving man, like water to a desert. It was a healing balm that they so sorely needed right then. Memories from the past to laugh about when the future looked so bleak. 

He thinks they can do this.

Together they continue to go through the possible plans Fiddleford had come up with, eventually moving on to brainstorming together. Stanford writes on his notepad as him and Stan talk, occasionally flipping to another page to comment on whatever idea they’re currently discussing. He’ll occasionally tear out a page and hand it to Fiddleford who reads it out loud, explaining it to Stanley whenever Ford devolves into advanced scientific lingo. 

They do that for a while before Stanford passes him one that he immediately vetoes. 

“We are **not** putting a metal plate in your head!” Fiddleford blanches.

“It’s not a terrible idea-“ Stanford begins, his voice sounding better now that he’s had something warm to sooth it. 

“It’s a crazy idea!” Fiddleford interrupts “None of us can do brain surgery, Stanford. It’s not safe!”

“We’ve done surgery before-“ Stanford insists.

“Yes! On a gnome’s stomach. A gnome isn’t a human and a stomach isn’t a brain!” Fiddleford argues. He honestly can’t believe Stanford would suggest this seriously. “Too much could go wrong.”

“Yeah I’m with Fiddleford on this, Sixer.” Stan adds, “No way are we doing that.”

“It would just be a small one, it’s our best bet!” Stanford asserts, taking the paper back and pointing at different parts of his schematics. “If we use a titanium steel alloy carved with a protection ward then we-“

“We could kill you in the process.” Fiddleford refuses. “No way are we doing that. We’ll come up with something else.” 

Stanford deflates but concedes. 

They continue, but in the end come up with nothing. 

They head to bed around 2am, securing Stanford to the bed with Fiddleford keeping watch. Bill doesn’t take Stanford’s body again, but his sleep is fitful. He tries to sooth Ford in his sleep, brushing his hand through his hair and his thumb over his brow, but nothing helps. When Ford wakes up, he’s covered in sweat and smells like a barn. He wakes Fiddleford up and he unlocks his restraints. Ford goes to take a shower as he rests for a few more hours. 

He’s woken up by Stanley the second time around, having slept for far longer than he thinks he ever had before. 

He can’t find Stanford.

The elevator to the basement isn’t at the top anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don’t burn your coffee or tea by boiling it too much. I know Fiddleford does, the heathen, but he also made a mindrape cult and hired a carnival crony to be his first member. 
> 
> Also don’t perform brain surgery on yourself. 
> 
> Yell at me or something, either on here or on Tumblr @Artistic-Arteries

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know if y'all like the chapter or not, it means the world to me to get even a smiley face or a rambling comment. It literally fuels my writing and without you guys I couldn't do any of this.


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